http://www.examiner.com/x-5745-Houston-Music-Examiner~y2009m7d16-Another-musician-with-a-broken-instrument-writes-a-song-airline-opens-check-book
Wow, does this story have legs or what?
Showing posts with label press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label press. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Thanks, Flight Wisdom!
Flight Wisdom Breaks Fiddles | Flight Wisdom
This blog deals with flying in general and features the Gory Bateson song "Southwest Never Broke My Guitar", which is pretty funny. Watch it to the end.
Flight Wisdom Breaks Fiddles
We enjoyed Dave Carroll’s unique approach to speaking out against customer service. Apparently we were not alone in this. It seems a lot of people did. It struck a chord with Westjet, the Canadian discount airline, which invited Dave not only to jam with them, but to fly with them next time. While we were writing this post, Westjet removed its video for reasons unknown.
Gory Bateson shared his thoughts on his favorite airline to fly, Southwest, and how they have always handled his guitar with car.
Then we get to the most unique one yet…Northwest Breaks Dulcimers, by Bing Futch. We were not aware there was a dulcimer podcast, but we learn something new every day.
This blog deals with flying in general and features the Gory Bateson song "Southwest Never Broke My Guitar", which is pretty funny. Watch it to the end.
Linking to the connections
Blog about jazz music » Jazz Guitar Music
Must be a mirror site of some sort for this:
http://www.socializedpr.com/united-breaks-guitars-case-study-in-old-media-failure/
Meanwhile, Bing Futch, whose mountain dulcimer had been damaged by Northwest Airlines, recorded his own video Northwest Breaks Dulcimers. Wisely, according to the Times Online, Northwest jumped in quickly and agreed to compensate Futch before becoming another bad customer service viral video case study.
“‘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 video had just over 2500 views as of this afternoon.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Orlando Weekly Blog Coverage
Orlando Weekly - Music Blog
Pretty funny little blurb and very indicative of the writing for the mag (I used to write for them back when I did a lot of music journalism.)
Out of 179 videos that I've uploaded to YouTube over a span of two years, "Only A Northwest Song" ranks number 24 in total viewings (as of this posting), and that's after three days of being posted. It's sort of like watching a single chart. Kinda.
So local dulimist(?) Bing Futch - suck on that name, Carroll - figured he'd ride the United coattails for the whole week it's popular and capitalize with his own similar-sounding jaunt called "Only a Northwest Song," (Beatles reference win?) in which Futch (really with that name?) explains how...well, you can guess the rest.
Pretty funny little blurb and very indicative of the writing for the mag (I used to write for them back when I did a lot of music journalism.)
Out of 179 videos that I've uploaded to YouTube over a span of two years, "Only A Northwest Song" ranks number 24 in total viewings (as of this posting), and that's after three days of being posted. It's sort of like watching a single chart. Kinda.
So THAT'S Why!
YouTube heroes Dave Carroll and Bing Futch win airline compensation - Times Online
After yesterday's resigned resolution with Northwest Airlines, I had pretty much turned eyes towards the future and have been continuing work on some new projects. The number of hits to the "Only A Northwest Song" videos (both long and short) were nowhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 million hits, but the numbers were still impressive for such a short span of time.
Sometime last night, however, I began to notice an uptick in views. Chalking it up to residual viewings from mirror sites, and thanking the internet gods for any kind of exposure I can get, I thought nothing more about it until this morning when I glanced at the view count and saw that it had very nearly doubled since I went to sleep. With a strange mixture of curiosity and giddiness, I did some Google searches and turned up the link at the top of this post. Well, God bless the U.K.
And, of course, being a musician, the tag of the article is my favorite part. It never gets old when someone likes your stuff.
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.”
After yesterday's resigned resolution with Northwest Airlines, I had pretty much turned eyes towards the future and have been continuing work on some new projects. The number of hits to the "Only A Northwest Song" videos (both long and short) were nowhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 million hits, but the numbers were still impressive for such a short span of time.
Sometime last night, however, I began to notice an uptick in views. Chalking it up to residual viewings from mirror sites, and thanking the internet gods for any kind of exposure I can get, I thought nothing more about it until this morning when I glanced at the view count and saw that it had very nearly doubled since I went to sleep. With a strange mixture of curiosity and giddiness, I did some Google searches and turned up the link at the top of this post. Well, God bless the U.K.
And, of course, being a musician, the tag of the article is my favorite part. It never gets old when someone likes your stuff.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
"We're Done" says Northwest
Kristine Brown, Assistant Manager of Luggage Service for Northwest/Delta, said "we're done" in regards to my compensation claim for the mountain dulcimer damaged on June 14th, 2009.
"The transport of musical instruments (as checked baggage) is at the customers' own risk, as our tariffs (the rules governing Luggage handling and claims) excludes liability for this type of property. As much as we wish we could guarantee that any fragile items can be transported without incident as checked luggage, our systems and the vastly differing aircraft types used to support our routes preclude this kind of guarantee."
United broke policy in offering compensation for Dave Carroll's guitar, she said, because there was evidence of mishandling (i.e. the eyewitnesses throwing guitar cases around.) My problem here is not so much the mishandling which caused the damage, but the fact that the carry-on bag had to be gate-checked when there was obviously room on board the plane for it.
In my history of flying Northwest, I've either encountered flight attendants who expressed doubt that the bag would fit, only to watch me slide it easily into the overhead compartment, or they've put up resistance, only to give in after I've politely told them that gate-checking was a dangerous proposition for an acoustic instrument in a soft case. Brown argues that their policy states there is no guarantee that carry-on luggage won't be subject to gate-checking should room become scarce on board the airplane.
I argue back that policy wasn't an issue with any of the numerous flight attendants on previous Northwest flights who allowed me to find available space for the dulcimer. A lack of consistency in their approach to policy gave me the knowledge that as long as I could find space on board a plane, I was good to go. So I've made a point to book seats in the rear of the aircraft, knowing that there is always overhead bin space back there. It's never been a problem; until now. With a flight attendant who clearly saw that there was space towards the front of the aircraft, I feel that it was whim, rather than policy, that dictated the fate of my instrument.
On behalf of Delta/Northwest, Brown said "we are concerned about your perception of this experience and as a gesture of our concern, I have issued you an Electronic Credit Voucher in the amount of $200." I suppose, in the corporate scheme of things, that meeting in the middle is as sure a victory for the little guy as anything, eh?
"The transport of musical instruments (as checked baggage) is at the customers' own risk, as our tariffs (the rules governing Luggage handling and claims) excludes liability for this type of property. As much as we wish we could guarantee that any fragile items can be transported without incident as checked luggage, our systems and the vastly differing aircraft types used to support our routes preclude this kind of guarantee."
United broke policy in offering compensation for Dave Carroll's guitar, she said, because there was evidence of mishandling (i.e. the eyewitnesses throwing guitar cases around.) My problem here is not so much the mishandling which caused the damage, but the fact that the carry-on bag had to be gate-checked when there was obviously room on board the plane for it.
In my history of flying Northwest, I've either encountered flight attendants who expressed doubt that the bag would fit, only to watch me slide it easily into the overhead compartment, or they've put up resistance, only to give in after I've politely told them that gate-checking was a dangerous proposition for an acoustic instrument in a soft case. Brown argues that their policy states there is no guarantee that carry-on luggage won't be subject to gate-checking should room become scarce on board the airplane.
I argue back that policy wasn't an issue with any of the numerous flight attendants on previous Northwest flights who allowed me to find available space for the dulcimer. A lack of consistency in their approach to policy gave me the knowledge that as long as I could find space on board a plane, I was good to go. So I've made a point to book seats in the rear of the aircraft, knowing that there is always overhead bin space back there. It's never been a problem; until now. With a flight attendant who clearly saw that there was space towards the front of the aircraft, I feel that it was whim, rather than policy, that dictated the fate of my instrument.
On behalf of Delta/Northwest, Brown said "we are concerned about your perception of this experience and as a gesture of our concern, I have issued you an Electronic Credit Voucher in the amount of $200." I suppose, in the corporate scheme of things, that meeting in the middle is as sure a victory for the little guy as anything, eh?
Northwest Breaks Dulcimers - the story continues
Dave Carroll shows online gripes can get results -- chicagotribune.com
The excerpt above is from the story published in today's Chicago Tribune. There were a couple of surprises included. One, I wasn't aware that Delta had acquired Northwest. Another surprise in the article was the paragraph beginning with "That changed quickly.." Shortly after my phone interview with Julie Johnsson, I received another phone call from Kristine Brown of Northwest Airlines. After talking through the situation, she did indeed make an offer of compensation. Since this situation is still developing, I'll leave it at that.
The article makes it appear as though I willy-nilly offered up my dulcimer as a sacrifice to the baggage handling gods. Suffice it to say that, even by Northwest/Delta's own carry-on allowances, my soft carry-on dulcimer bag was intended to go inside the plane and not in the cargo hold. Though there was space for the bag in a closet near the front of the plane, I was told to gate-check it by a Northwest flight attendant who ignored my protestations that it was an acoustic instrument in a soft case unfit for cargo transportation.
Notice that even Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott stated that damage was sustained, "in part", due to the softness of the case. The part left unstated had to do with the actions of the flight attendant.
Only one time before have I been forced to gate-check an instrument and that was a Delta flight. Delta has a notorious history, known for their intolerance regarding musical instruments as carry-ons, to the point of a boycott against the airline instituted by the American Federation of Musicians.
The pressure worked and the boycott was called off, according to a press release dated April 26, 2007:
While "Only A Northwest Song" hasn't gotten nearly the quantity of hits that "United Breaks Guitars" did, the rate of views has picked up considerably over the past 24 hours. In all of the 179 videos posted on my YouTube page, it is absolutely the fastest racker of hits.
Stay tuned.
Inspired by Carroll, Bing Futch said he wrote a song and crafted a video Friday about a dulcimer splintered by Northwest Airlines workers because he wanted to avoid a lengthy battle to be reimbursed.
Futch said he filed an online claim after the June 14 incident, but not within the 24 hours specified by the airline. "Since then I've gotten crickets," the Orlando-based musician said.
That changed quickly when Delta Air Lines, which acquired Northwest last fall, learned of his video, "Northwest Breaks Dulcimers," on Monday. "We've reached out to the customer and offered our apologies and compensation," said Susan Elliott, a Delta spokeswoman. She said his dulcimer was damaged, in part, because it was packaged in a soft-shell case. She urged passengers to carefully pack musical instruments.
The excerpt above is from the story published in today's Chicago Tribune. There were a couple of surprises included. One, I wasn't aware that Delta had acquired Northwest. Another surprise in the article was the paragraph beginning with "That changed quickly.." Shortly after my phone interview with Julie Johnsson, I received another phone call from Kristine Brown of Northwest Airlines. After talking through the situation, she did indeed make an offer of compensation. Since this situation is still developing, I'll leave it at that.
The article makes it appear as though I willy-nilly offered up my dulcimer as a sacrifice to the baggage handling gods. Suffice it to say that, even by Northwest/Delta's own carry-on allowances, my soft carry-on dulcimer bag was intended to go inside the plane and not in the cargo hold. Though there was space for the bag in a closet near the front of the plane, I was told to gate-check it by a Northwest flight attendant who ignored my protestations that it was an acoustic instrument in a soft case unfit for cargo transportation.
Notice that even Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott stated that damage was sustained, "in part", due to the softness of the case. The part left unstated had to do with the actions of the flight attendant.
Only one time before have I been forced to gate-check an instrument and that was a Delta flight. Delta has a notorious history, known for their intolerance regarding musical instruments as carry-ons, to the point of a boycott against the airline instituted by the American Federation of Musicians.
The AFM also has been working with the airline industry to institute uniform carry on and storage policies in respect to instruments. While most airlines have shown sympathy toward musicians, Delta Airlines remains uncooperative and has created numerous problems for AFM members. In response, the AFM issued a boycott of Delta. Recently, the AFM has been informed that Delta is reviewing its policies.
The pressure worked and the boycott was called off, according to a press release dated April 26, 2007:
In addition to its carry-on policy, Delta also improved its checked baggage policy. Previously, Delta only accepted checked baggage that measured 80 linear inches or less with a weight limit of 80 pounds. Checked items can now measure up to 120 linear inches and weigh up to 100 pounds, good news for musicians traveling with large instruments.
While "Only A Northwest Song" hasn't gotten nearly the quantity of hits that "United Breaks Guitars" did, the rate of views has picked up considerably over the past 24 hours. In all of the 179 videos posted on my YouTube page, it is absolutely the fastest racker of hits.
Stay tuned.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
United Breaks Guitars - Northwest Breaks Dulcimers (Song Only)
Here's the short form of the video with just "Only A Northwest Song."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)