Coffee, tea, or is it just me? That's what Dave Carroll must be thinking after his latest luggage malfunction with United Airlines.
The singer, who gained folk-hero fame this summer in a fight with United over his broken guitar, now has a new axe to grind. On a flight from Regina to Denver on Sunday, the airline not only lost his luggage but insisted that he stay in the international baggage claim area at Denver International Airport. Mr. Carroll was told that his bag of music equipment and shoes was only delayed, not lost, and that he would need to be there when it arrived.
It didn't until three days later.
The irony of this latest flap with the airline is that Mr. Carroll was flying to Colorado to speak to a group of customer service executives. The modestly successful musician, who struck a chord with disgruntled customers with his everyman-empowering video, now regularly speaks to organizations on the importance of client relations. As well, the singer-songwriter has scored an endorsement deal with Carlton Cases, makers of sturdy travel containers for stringed instruments. Mr. Carroll, you might say, has got a lot of career-boosting air mileage from his baggage misfortune.
"There's no question that my solo career and my career with my band, Sons of Maxwell, are busier now," the Halifax-based musician said last night. "But it's still aggravating when your baggage doesn't show up."
What did the travel-troubled troubadour do when his luggage wasn't there for him in Denver? "I just threw my hands up in the air. I'm no different than anyone else."
Mr. Carroll spoke to The Globe and Mail from Newark, N.J., during a layover on his flight home from Denver. He flew Continental, not United.
Mr. Carroll won international notice this summer for his fight with the airline over its response after his guitar was roughly handled and broken by reckless United baggage handlers. When the airline treated his complaint with the same disrespect shown his $3,500 instrument, the songwriter created a tune and accompanying video titled United Breaks Guitars. The online video was viewed more than 5.5 million times, and United, faced with a whirring propeller-full of poor publicity, eventually compensated Mr. Carroll for his shattered six-string and formally apologized. The airline said it is now using Mr. Carroll's videos - there are two, with one more to come - as training tools for employees.
United has responded more efficiently to this week's mishap. "We apologized to Mr. Carroll for his inconvenience," said spokesperson Jean Medina, "and we have reached out to him to make this right."
The ballad of the missing baggage is reminiscent of rocker Steve Miller's 1976 hit Rock'n Me, a song that chronicles an unnecessarily circuitous touring route taking Mr. Miller from Phoenix, Ariz., "all the way to Tacoma, Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A.," and then on to Northern California - all to ensure that he could be with his "sweet baby, yeah." In Mr. Carroll's case, his baggage never left Regina on a scheduled flight to Denver. Instead it was shuttled to Calgary and Denver, back to Calgary, again to Denver, then to Fort Worth, Texas, back to Denver, and, finally to Mr. Carroll's hotel in Colorado Springs three days later.
It may surprise some that Mr. Carroll, after his initial incident and subsequent runaround, is still munching United's peanuts. "I avoid flying that airline, for obvious reasons," he said. "Since July, I've only flown United for four legs of several journeys."
For his keynote address at the Colorado meeting, Mr. Carroll led with the fresh story of his latest mishap with United. "It got a great reception," he said. "A lot of people there immediately got on Twitter and reported what happened. It's kind of funny, when you think about it."
