Credits to PW member Emmery for sending this to me. I could not resist posting this here so that everyone could enjoy it too. Nothing to do with pianos of course but related to customer service
A good lesson for all of us……

Rule # 2...don't tick -off your customers.

Rule #1....don’t tick-off your creative customers.

This is excellent!

A musician named Dave Carroll recently had difficulty with United Airlines. United apparently damaged his treasured Taylor guitar ($3500) during a flight. Dave spent over 9 months trying to get United to pay for damages caused by baggage handlers to his custom Taylor guitar. During his final exchange with the United Customer Relations Manager, he stated that he was left with no choice other than to create a music video for YouTube exposing their lack of cooperation.
The Manager responded: "Good luck with that one, pal".

So he posted a retaliatory video on youtube. The video has since received over 6 million hits. United Airlines contacted the musician and attempted settlement in exchange for pulling the video.

Naturally his response was: "Good luck with that one, pal".

Taylor Guitars sent the musician 2 new custom guitars in appreciation for the product recognition from the video that has led to a sharp increase in orders.

Here's the video.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo&NR=1

Dave is from our province of Nova Scotia Canada. Since the first video hit Youtube his band popularity has taken off. He has done a sequel and they just finished a third video.

oh yeah

Love it!!!!

Thanks guys

Six million--- that's sextuple Platinum.

Yep. 'Rule #1.

The song is hilarious, and the acting cast is top notch, especially the two baggage handlers.

25 years ago, I played with a guitar player who's day job was a baggage handler at O'hare! I doubt he threw guitars, but I've seen lots of things tossed and dropped as I looked out the window of a plane. My advice....play a flute. It's an easy carry-on.

better still play a concert grand, then watch them try to toss that around

I guess that the luggage are not in a pressurized zone, and it may get very cold when the plane flies, it is not the best idea from the beginning to have acoustical instruments there ...

I doubt also that those days it is easy to go to the cabin with a guitar box.

Funny story anyway !

It's 7.5m right now! And yes, lol, but I'm wondering about any potential legal consequencies about this (also this poort ms. irweng (however spelled).).

...or a violin case for that matter.

I wonder if its possible to make a guitar case that is resistant to these baggage handler abuses? Maybe something with more foam in it or a siren that goes off when an accelerometer in it hits 50 G's. Better yet, a small camera that snaps a wide angle photo of the baggage abuser and catches him/her in the act.

After the first 50,000 hits United attempted to settle this with the artist..........

If you listen to this response from Bob Taylor of Taylor guitars he tells us that it is practically impossible to damage a guitar in a hard case unless treated very roughly.

He also goes on to state that unknown to most the TSA allows guitars onboard the plane without checking them. Most airlines and airline employees do not know this. Here is Bob at this link......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n12WFZq2__0&feature=related

Oh and Mrs Irleg? Good old Dave comes back in with a small statement about her being roasted in the comments section of the original video. Here is that statement........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_X-Qoh__mw&feature=channel

Here is a statement allegedly from Mrs Irleg but I am of the belief that this is fake. United would not be foolish enough to allow an employee to respond to this.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2lq7Pk98VI&feature=related

Anyways, even though I don’t play, I am flying next week on United with a guitar!

There are specialized cases available for flying guitars. Generally, the instrument's own case is definitely not good enough! I heard of a Fender Strat being snapped in half in it's own case by a gorilla baggage handler.

just an update, Dave Carrol has released the final video in the trilogy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P45E0uGVyeg

Love it. Thanks for keeping us up to date on this one Wayne.

A customer's family recently had the next broken off a guitar while being handled as baggage by an airline. They paid up with no hassle. I can't help but wonder if these videos had something to do with it.

I do know that they don't like golf clubs and not responsible if they are not bagged in a hard case.

Jeff,
Perhaps the videos did make a difference. As I stated in an earlier posting the TSA allows guitars onboard without checking them as baggage.
Les,
I can see the mentality of golf clubs being used as a weapon. Also they can be easily damaged(bent)

Then there's the story of the US Customs destroying Krystian Zimerman's Hamburg Steinway 274 because they thought "the glue was made up of some explosive"

And with a grand, it doesn't even have to be the result of human idiocy. With regard to:

"...better still play a concert grand, then watch them try to toss that around..."

Not so fast, there--back when Gould would play nothing but his treasured Steinway (the one now in a museum in Toronto), he had it shipped all around the country--until one day it arrived back in Toronto and when the time came to uncrate it for his next recording session--they found that the crate had been dropped from a height of 3 - 5 feet. The lid was cracked in several places, screws and bolts were snapped, the plate was cracked completely through in 3 places, and the action had shot backwards (I think) taking everything in its path along for the ride.

It was never the same after that.

Russ

"better still play a concert grand, then watch them try to toss that around"

I yesterday hit upon another similar story

In 2006 the famous Polish pianist Zimerman had his personal customized Steinway grand shipped for his performance in Carnegie Hall. The TSA in the US DESTROYED his piano because the glue SMELLED LIKE explosives.

Ah ThomasP already mentioned this... sorry I missed that ;-)