By now you have probably all seen this, especially since the artist has been on the talk show circuit, but on the off chance that you’ve been living in a cave, I offer the following video, produced by musician Dave Carroll.
While sitting on a United plane awaiting takeoff, Carroll saw luggage handlers tossing his guitar around the tarmac. He notified the flight attendants, all of whom were indifferent to his concerns. Upon arrival at his destination, Carroll’s worst fears were realized – the guitar was broken. Thus began a year-long fight with the airline, which repeatedly refused to reimburse Carroll for repairs. Disgusted, he recorded a song, “United Breaks Guitars,” and posted it to YouTube. To date, the video has been viewed by more than 7.4 million – yes, I said MILLION – people and the situation has become a public relations nightmare for United. Ya’ just gotta love social media! Give it a listen, it’s hysterical.
There’s a part 2 as well but not nearly as good.
I must have been in the same cave as Fida. This is a good lesson for a company that could have done a much better job handling this.
Heather – I live in Spain and the BBC has blocked that video from being shown here, or at least that’s the message I get when I try to view it.
Isn’t social media fantastic & what a PR disaster! it reminds me of this one I featured about Ryanair although not quite as many hits but making the point just a clearly
http://www.heatheronhertravels.com/ryanair-video/
That was a hoot. I shall spread the word! However, I suppose the fault is the luggage handling people, but the passenger has to take it up with the airline, who then take it up with the luggage handlers?
The next time something like this happens the passenger is likely to have their cellphone handy to photograph it too…..not so likely to get away with things one way or the other these days!
I have been living in a cave 😉 I just heard today about it. I booked a flight and was checking out the United Airline baggage policy and their story came up on google. I thought I should check out their song – and voilà, you posted it 🙂