Such a great story.
To sum it up, a canadian band was on a plane when they saw the bagage handlers throwing one of the musician's guitar's around, which resulted in the guitar being broken.
Not one person wanted to help him regarding the issue. Eventually, United said they would not be held responsible at all. This lasted 9 months.
Finally, the band made a song about their whole ordeal, which you can see here:
[YT]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5YGc4zOqozo&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5YGc4zOqozo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/YT]
the video got over 400,000 hits in just a couple of days.
And finally, surprisingly, only after this video caught so much attention, United wants to setup a meeting with the band on how to make things right.
Here's an article from the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/07/08/united-breaks-guitars.html
Dave and Don Carroll of the band Sons of Maxwell. (Sons of Maxwell) Halifax band Sons of Maxwell have taken their battle with United Airlines over a broken guitar to YouTube.
And it seems the U.S. airline might just be listening.
Dave Carroll, the primary songwriter for the folk group, pledged to write three songs about United Airlines breaking his guitar after months of runaround over the incident.
"We were touring last year, over a year ago, going to Nebraska and we had to fly United Airlines landing in Chicago for a quick turnaround," he told CBC News.
"Somebody who didn't know we were musicians cried out from behind me that 'they're throwing guitars outside.'"
Carroll said his bass player saw United employees throwing the bass guitar, recognizing it through the plane window.
"I tried to alert three employees who showed no interest at all and it began a nine-month saga of me trying to get compensation for a guitar that ended up being broken, badly broken," he said.
The $3,500 Taylor acoustic guitar had been custom-made and was packed in a padded double case, but United refused to take responsibility. Carroll sent emails, wrote letters and talked to people at the airline over nine months until a Chicago employee told him to stop sending emails because he wasn't going to get compensation.
"I said 'What would Michael Moore do if he was a singer-songwriter?' and so I decided to write three songs," said Carroll, who started Sons of Maxwell with his brother Don.
United Song #1, a hurting song, with a catchy refrain that goes, in part, "United breaks guitars" and "You broke it you should fix it," went on YouTube July 6. It caught on pretty quickly, with more than 150,000 hits in its first day.
The song describes the incident in detail, including the horror of watching from the plane as their equipment was wrecked.
That was enough to get the airline's attention.
On Tuesday, a United Airlines spokeswoman said: "This has struck a chord with us. We're going to contact him directly."
Carroll said he's hoping his song is going to make a difference for everyone who gets burned by battered luggage.
"They're talking about changing the culture of customer service. This could end up making a real difference," he said.
To sum it up, a canadian band was on a plane when they saw the bagage handlers throwing one of the musician's guitar's around, which resulted in the guitar being broken.
Not one person wanted to help him regarding the issue. Eventually, United said they would not be held responsible at all. This lasted 9 months.
Finally, the band made a song about their whole ordeal, which you can see here:
[YT]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5YGc4zOqozo&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5YGc4zOqozo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/YT]
the video got over 400,000 hits in just a couple of days.
And finally, surprisingly, only after this video caught so much attention, United wants to setup a meeting with the band on how to make things right.
Here's an article from the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/07/08/united-breaks-guitars.html
Dave and Don Carroll of the band Sons of Maxwell. (Sons of Maxwell) Halifax band Sons of Maxwell have taken their battle with United Airlines over a broken guitar to YouTube.
And it seems the U.S. airline might just be listening.
Dave Carroll, the primary songwriter for the folk group, pledged to write three songs about United Airlines breaking his guitar after months of runaround over the incident.
"We were touring last year, over a year ago, going to Nebraska and we had to fly United Airlines landing in Chicago for a quick turnaround," he told CBC News.
"Somebody who didn't know we were musicians cried out from behind me that 'they're throwing guitars outside.'"
Carroll said his bass player saw United employees throwing the bass guitar, recognizing it through the plane window.
"I tried to alert three employees who showed no interest at all and it began a nine-month saga of me trying to get compensation for a guitar that ended up being broken, badly broken," he said.
The $3,500 Taylor acoustic guitar had been custom-made and was packed in a padded double case, but United refused to take responsibility. Carroll sent emails, wrote letters and talked to people at the airline over nine months until a Chicago employee told him to stop sending emails because he wasn't going to get compensation.
"I said 'What would Michael Moore do if he was a singer-songwriter?' and so I decided to write three songs," said Carroll, who started Sons of Maxwell with his brother Don.
United Song #1, a hurting song, with a catchy refrain that goes, in part, "United breaks guitars" and "You broke it you should fix it," went on YouTube July 6. It caught on pretty quickly, with more than 150,000 hits in its first day.
The song describes the incident in detail, including the horror of watching from the plane as their equipment was wrecked.
That was enough to get the airline's attention.
On Tuesday, a United Airlines spokeswoman said: "This has struck a chord with us. We're going to contact him directly."
Carroll said he's hoping his song is going to make a difference for everyone who gets burned by battered luggage.
"They're talking about changing the culture of customer service. This could end up making a real difference," he said.
