YouTube heroes Dave Carroll and Bing Futch win airline compensation

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6708792.ece

The days of complaints in triplicate, airline delaying
tactics and premium-rate customer call centres are over. If
you want compensation for your damaged luggage, you just
need to write a song.

Dave Carroll spent nine months trying to win compensation
when his guitar was broken during a flight between Chicago
and Nebraska last spring. He eventually accepted that he
would get no payment from United Airlines, so he took the
battle online.

With his band Sons of Maxwell, Carroll wrote a catchy,
folksy tune called "United Breaks Guitars". Then he recorded
a video featuring callous baggage handlers maiming
instruments and posted it on YouTube.

"I should have flown with someone else, or gone by car,
because United breaks guitars," he croons while perched on a
suitcase on a runway.

People liked the comic ditty and sent it to their friends.
One week and 2 million views later, Carroll was invited for
a series of television and radio interviews and his cause
was mentioned on CNN and the Oprah Winfrey Show.

United Airlines relented on Friday and donated $3,000 in
Carroll's name to support music education through the
Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

Bing Futch, a second disgruntled passenger, saw Carroll's
song and, on the day that United announced they were finally
writing a cheque, he posted his own aviation protest song on
YouTube.

Northwest airlines left no time for a second viral protest
movement and yesterday they stepped in to say sorry and
offered money towards repairs.

Futch is also a musician, although his personal passion is
for the rare double-necked mountain dulcimer, a fretted
string instrument. Futch was on the way to a gig in Indiana
when he found his instrument was damaged after a flight with
Northwest airlines.

He did not fill out the online complaint form within the
required 24 hours last month, so he was worried that he
would receive no compensation. However, within a single
working day of his video "Northwest breaks dulcimers"
hitting the web, the airline were in touch.

"We've reached out to the customer and offered our
apologies and compensation," said Susan Elliott, a
spokeswoman for Delta, who owns Northwest airlines. She said
that his dulcimer was damaged, in part, because it was
packaged in a soft-shell case but they still decided to
offer compensation.

Futch's song, in a similar tune to 'Go West' by the Pet
Shop Boys, has an even more memorable chorus.

"Northwest! Where baggage handlers roam.
Northwest! You'll be taking pieces home."

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