Ok, so I know this is getting posted everywhere, but being a fellow (originally) east coaster like Dave Caroll, I just had to post this video to show support for the experience he had with United Airlines.

I’ve flown quite a bit myself over the years, and this is one of the horrors you feel whenever you fly. With me, it’s usually laptops, with him, it was expensive guitars, and the feeling is still there for each of you who fly with an expensive belonging. I try to keep whatever I can with me, regardless what they have to say about it. But there have been times, when I have had to check an item, and had no hopes of it arriving in one piece. When it did, I was quite happy, and vowed never to check it again (and I haven’t).

You can listen to the song here, and read it for yourself on Dave’s website, but here’s the short and sweet version:

In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world…

To get the full story, you can visit his site

There is also an interesting article about it on SEOMoz, which does get into the Customer Service lessons here.

Also, here’s a link to another youtube video, where Dave himself makes a statement regarding United Airlines quick response to his music video.

Finally, here’s United’s twitter replies regarding the incident, and showing that they have seemed to have settled their differences.

It’s nice if it’s all getting settled now, but it would have been even nicer if it hadn’t come down to having to take such measures in the first place. If United hadn’t dropped the ball like they did, things would have been over long ago.