While I support Dave who made the video, and deplore any airline's mishandling of instruments and luggage and poor customer service and recompense thereafter, I must give another perspective.

I fly United for business and personal travel. After 150,000 miles of travel with checked bags and instruments (not frequent), I have had my checked luggage misplaced once and delayed once. On both occasions United delivered the bag to my hotel or home without any discussion. We have carried our instruments on and, when necessary, checked them plane side where they travel through fewer handlings and are picked up planeside at arrival. But if checking my guitar through is absolutely necessary, then:

Heres the relatively inexpensive flight case/gig bag combination I use. CaseExtreme http://www.casextreme.com/
case with a Reunion Blues http://www.reunionblues.com/home.html gig bag inside.
For you banjo players, our pal Adam Hurt uses one of these also.

I have flown Northwest, Delta, UsAirways, Southwest, and Continental two things seem to me to be true. 1)United is equal and usually better in performance. 2)When things go wrong, and they will sometimes, a smile and an understanding attitude will obtain the best outcome. Entitled, self-righteous anger is counter-productive.

(We'll be checking Susette's Orpheum at planeside tomorrow).

Wish us luck!
Chance