| "United Breaks Guitars" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Dave Carroll | ||||
| Released | July 6, 2009 | |||
| Format | Digital download | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Length | 4:36 | |||
| Label | Dave Carroll Music | |||
| Writer(s) | Dave Carroll | |||
| Dave Carroll singles chronology | ||||
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"United Breaks Guitars" is a song by Canadian musician Dave Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell. It chronicles a real-life experience of how his guitar was broken during a trip on United Airlines in 2008, and the subsequent reaction from the airline. The song became an immediate YouTube and iTunes hit upon its release in July 2009.
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Musician Dave Carroll said his guitar was broken while in the airline's custody. He alleged that he and fellow passengers on board a flight plane saw baggage-handling crew throwing guitars on the tarmac in Chicago O'Hare on his flight from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Omaha, Nebraska. He arrived at his destination to discover that his $3,500 Taylor guitar had indeed suffered a broken neck (shown in his video).[1][2] Fox News questioned Carroll on why he checked the valuable guitar and Carroll explained that it is difficult to bring guitars onto flights as carry-on luggage.[3] In his song, he sang that he "alerted three employees who showed complete indifference towards me" when he raised the matter in Chicago. Carroll filed a claim with the airline, and was informed that he was ineligible for compensation because he had failed to make the claim within the company's stipulated "standard 24-hour timeframe".[4]
Carroll says that his fruitless negotiations with the airline for compensation lasted nine months.[5] Then, thinking what Michael Moore would have done, Carroll wrote a song and created a music video about his experience.[6] The lyrics include the verse "I should have flown with someone else, or gone by car, 'cause United breaks guitars."[7] Carroll, who has performed as a solo artist and as a member of the group Sons of Maxwell, wrote two sequel songs related to the events as well.[2] The second video, United Breaks Guitars: Song 2 was released on YouTube on August 18, 2009.[8] The song takes a humorous look at Carroll's dealings with "the unflappable" United customer service employee Ms. Irlweg, and targets the "flawed policies" that she was forced to uphold.[2] In March 2010, United Breaks Guitars: Song 3 was released.[9] The third and final song is a coda in which Carroll says while he is satisfied by the conclusion of this affair since it has greatly benefited his career, he warns United that they must improve customer service or risk losing all their customers. The song adopts a somewhat conciliatory approach noting that not all employees at United are "bad apples." The final line of the trilogy of songs is, "They say that you're [United] changing and I hope you do, 'Cause if you don't then who would fly with you?"[9]
The YouTube video was posted on July 6. It amassed 150,000 views within one day, prompting United to contact Carroll saying it hoped to right the wrong.[5] The video garnered over half a million hits by July 9,[7] 5 million by mid-August 2009,[4] and 10 million by February 2011.
Media reported the story of the song's instant success and the public relations humiliation for United Airlines.[1][6][10] Attempting to put a positive gloss on the incident and the song, a company spokesman called it "excellent". Rob Bradford, United's managing director of customer solutions, telephoned Carroll to apologize for the foul-up and to ask if the carrier could use the video internally for training.[7] United mentioned it hoped to learn from the incident, and to change its customer service policy as a result of the incident.[5]
Bob Taylor, owner of Taylor Guitars, immediately offered Carroll two guitars and other props for his second video.[10] The song hit number one on the iTunes Music Store the week following its release.[11] The Times reported that the belated compensation offer of $3,000 which was donated by United to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz as a "gesture of goodwill" failed to undo the damage done to its image.[12]
Since the incident, Carroll has been in great demand as a speaker on customer service. On one of his trips as a speaker, United Airlines lost his luggage.[11]
In December 2009, Time magazine named "United Breaks Guitars" #7 on its list of the Top 10 Viral Videos of 2009.[13]
The Times newspaper reported[14] that within 4 days of the video being posted online, United Airline's stock price fell 10%, costing stockholders about $180 million in value.
However, other analysts have questioned whether this price drop can be directly linked to the video; they note that some other airlines (American, Continental, Delta, and Southwest) also had drops in their stock price on that date, and that United stock had been on a roller coaster all that quarter, including some days with drops greater than 10% in value. Musician Dave Carroll himself has not made any statements regarding this stock price drop. Additionally, since the video was posted on July 6, the cumulative stock price drop was only 2% (from 3.34 to 3.26).