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United Airlines’ “Smashing” Hit Song (and Video)

It happens. Luggage goes lost or damaged and no gives a damn at the airline. The series of tubes known as the internets, however, is giving the occasional bit of power to the people.

I admit that I once too had a guitar eaten up by an airline. When I arrived for the first time in Turkey, with my life packed up in a couple suitcases, I also had a bass guitar in tow. It didn’t show up at the baggage claim. It was a couple days later that I got the call that it had reappeared and when I got back out to the airport, the bottom of the case looked like a shark had taken a bite out of it. Fortunately for me, the case did its job and the guitar was not harmed. Turkish Airlines cut me a check for the price of a new case. Fair enough.

Not so for Dave Carroll, a country singer with a band called Sons of Maxwell. They were on tour back in 2008 and had United Airlines reservations. On a connection in Chicago’s O’Horror they watched out the window of the plane as their instruments were tossed around willy nilly. Carroll’s guitar, worth over 3 grand, got the Pete Townshend treatment. Everyone can guess what happened next. No help and no care — and hours of phone time from here to India to confirm that. But Carroll’s new music video “United Breaks Guitars” got him the attention he deserved and a bit of vengeance. He has two more videos on the way. Great ad campaign for United. Anyone who’s had Delta Airlines reservations in the past may be familiar with a Facebook page of collective venting against that airline as well. If you are booking through a 3rd party agent, such as Travelocity or CheapoAir (to name a few) be sure you know what their policies are as they might not be the same conditions as the airline you are flying (for better or worse).

***In honor of Galapagos Islands National Park’s 50 year anniversary, I put up a Galapagos photo gallery and reposted an article about my trip there. There is an accompanying video at the bottom as well.***

Kevin Revolinski

Author, travel writer/photographer, world traveler. Writes about travel, hiking, camping, paddling, and craft beer.

2 thoughts on “United Airlines’ “Smashing” Hit Song (and Video)

  • I'm all for stickin' it to the airlines, but are the ground crews employed by them or the airports?

    After an incident with Northworst two years ago, I told them they could refund half my ticket (since I missed half of my trip) or they'd lose my patronage forever. Instead, they offered me about $5 worth of miles and I said "not good enough. Bye." Because you can't get through on the phones (too many people getting screwed at any given time), they don't have a convenient way to cancel their points program. My solution was to log into my online account and change my mailing address to the address of their corporate office.

    Reply
  • The Galapagos Islands are the most incredible living museum of evolutionary changes, with a huge variety of exotic species (birds, land animals, plants) and landscapes not seen anywhere else.

    Reply

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