And you thought that only the Empire Strikes Back? Not so. A band called Sons of Maxwell has struck back at United Airlines for tossing an expensive guitar out on the tarmac and breaking it.
The video tells the tale far better than I could ever hope to do. Hats off to this group, Sons of Maxell, for giving consumers hope. Too many companies just give half rate services and then blow you off when you complain. All too often, entry level clerks tell us no without bothering to even investigate.
In the case of Sons of Maxwell, we might speculate on who got fired at United after this video hit Youtube.com and all the cable news shows. No one wants to be the star of this group’s complaint list!
Not all of us are in the position of being able to create our own videos. What other means do consumers have to right the wrongs of the various companies we have to deal with? Any good get even stories out there?
Hilarious. United has some of the worst customer-service ratings in the industry. We travel quite a bit, and have had more than our share of rude and unprofessional United employees.
Want a good travel experience? Fly Southwest. You don’t get an assigned seat, but their crew is friendly and often very entertaining during the flight.
Very funny. I myself am more concerned about the airlines maintenance record over any complaints about luggage. When the economy stinks people hold off getting repairs done to their cars and such, so I hope the airlines don’t go down the same path!
Hate to bring this up (not really), but with millions of Mexicans in this country you mean to tell me they couldn’t find three to sing backup? Ironic, but the costumes remind me of that border cartoon everyone here was so fond of. I guess music really does soothe the sole! ; )
I don’t know enough about the band to answer that question. I think they might be a Canadian band. The one NOT wearing a sombrero is named Dave Carroll.
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/07/10/united-breaks-guitars.html
Not everyone howled over the border cartoon, did they? 😉
Perhaps I have my blogs confused.
Of course, United was very contrite after this became big news. I used to travel United exclusively (for reasons having to do with their fleet, mostly), and although I never had too bad a time of it, I could see the frustration and often though they should replace the logo on the tails of their planes with a hand with extended middle finger….truth in advertising. I do believe they are Canadian, Moon. I heard the guy talking on a show Friday and he sounded Canadian to me (here comes the “racist” accusations).
Most definitely, Slow;)
Is this a well-known band? I thought the song was very clever?
That is hilarious. I just flew United from Dulles to Atlanta and back last week, and let’s just say it wasn’t the greatest experience. Then again, it was slightly better than my experiences flying from here to Dallas and further beyond in Texas on American, a couple of times earlier this summer. Years ago I used to think both were good airlines, now they both are just plain awful. Indeed, the flight attendants on United act like they are doing you a big favor. This one was in a terrible mood and when it was time for soda or other drinks she came along and shouted at you “Whaddya want” and then slammed the drink down on your tray table! It was a can of soda, and even after waiting a few minutes mine and the person next to me – both sprayed all over the place when we opened the thing! On the way back, I somehow got upgraded to First Class for free. Big deal, you know what the dinner item was? One of those stupid “snack boxes” they sell for $6 or so back in Coach. Some dinner.
I have heard good things on the other hand about Southwest, but never have had the opportunity to fly them. Unfortunately they don’t show up on my company’s travel reservation system, and we have to use it – we cannot make flight reservations any other way.
I just heard one of them today made an emergency landing in West VA because it had a hole the size of a football in the fuselage.
I like Jet Blue. Last time I flew with them though, one of the flight attendance was such a horn dog with a group of male passengers I thought we were going to have to grab a fire extinguisher. The other 2 did her work for her. It was very obvious and very unprofessional.
I heard about the plane with the hole in it too. It was headed for Baltimore.
I flew Jet Blue last summer up to Boston from Dulles on a personal trip, and thought it was a pretty nice airline. The seats were great, they let you watch a bunch of different TV channels from DirecTV I think, and all in all it was a good flight. That’s my first time flying it, but I thought they were better than United or American.
I’ve been on a flight where a flight attendant spendt all her time flirting with some guys – not fun especially when it is all the way to California! I figured they were all going to reconvene at some local hotel or something once the flight landed, the way it was going. She was practically sitting in one guy’s lap, that’s how bad it was! This was on United a few years ago from Dulles to San Francisco.
Actually, Southwest used to have some show on either A&E or the Bravo channel, which showed unusual experiences with passengers and stuff. It was shot as a reality show, and followed some flight attendants and airline reps around as they performed their daily jobs. There was some unusual stuff, but in general it seemed Southwest tried to do the right thing in difficult situations involving customer service, etc.
The coffee, tea or me syndrome was alive and well with the one I witnessed. However, the more serious minded women and men carried on. I imagine they filed complaints. I would have. I almost did anyway.
My experience was a few years back – I was tempted to complain but didn’t. I should have, I aws in the row right behind all that and suffered through it for 5 hours. I know I was rolling my eyes at it, and I’m sure other people did too. Then again, this grouchy young woman on the latest flight slamming drinks down on people’s tray tables – that sort of bugged me even more. Everyone’s drinks were spraying on them who got cans of soda. Also my seat really shook like anything when she slammed the drink down for the person sitting behind me. Let’s just say this – flying these days is not fun – and all you can do is hope you get from Point A to Point B within a reasonable amount of time and hopefully not too much hassle. If you are hoping for anything else beyond that, you are going to be sorely disappointed! If I could get to some of the places i have to go to, in a reasonable amount of time without flying, that would be great. Until such time as they invent a Star Trek transporter like device, I guess we’ll have to suffer along with flying to get any far distance we have to travel.
A star treck transporter sounds like a good idea.