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.***
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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.
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.