After famously breaking his guitar, United Airlines has managed to cause further trouble for David Carroll by losing his luggage just as the Canadian singer-songwriter was en route to deliver a speech about customer service.
Musician Dave Carroll, of the pop-folk band Sons Of Maxwell, holds his repaired Taylor guitar in Halifax on Wednesday July 9, 2009. Carroll has become an internet sensation after posting a revenge song about airline customer service on YouTube with his song "United Breaks Guitars." Carroll's guitar sustained serious damage while travelling to a performance in the United States.
Musician Dave Carroll, of the pop-folk band Sons Of Maxwell, holds his repaired Taylor guitar in Halifax on Wednesday July 9, 2009. Carroll has become an internet sensation after posting a revenge song about airline customer service on YouTube with his song "United Breaks Guitars." Carroll's guitar sustained serious damage while travelling to a performance in the United States.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
This image made available by Norway's Kristiansand Regional Customs Service, Tuesday Oct 27, 2009, shows how an unidentified 22-year-old Norwegian man attempted to smuggle two dozen snakes and geckos into Norway under his clothes, after travelling on a ferry from Hirtshals, Denmark. Customs agent Helge Breilid said Monday that the man was apprehended in the southern town of Kristiansand with 14 royal pythons and 10 albino leopard geckos under his clothes.
AP Photo/Kristiansand Regional Customs Service, ho
The Wrapped Room is one of many creative and even bizarre rooms at the Propeller Island City Lodge, shown photographed February 14, 2002 in Berlin, Germany. Owner, artist and musician Lars Stroschen designed the rooms of the hotel, which now has 28 rooms and has been open since June, 2001.
Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The Martyrdom of St. Anne by Diana Thorneycraft features an Anne doll carrying plasticine representations of her breasts on a platter.
Diana Thorneycraft
An Indian women feeds the pigeons in front of The Gateway of India in Mumbai on October 15, 2009. Mumbai the financial capital of India is also a hub for tourists, who flock to the Gateway -- one of the favourite tourist spots.
SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images
Human-shaped plastic balloons float in the air at the concouse of Tokyo's Haneda Airport, as a public art installation on October 15, 2009. Tokyo University professor Michitaka Hirose and his laboratory members exhibited their various public arts at the airport in their Digital Public Art Project, called "Air Port", which will be held through November 3.
YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images
Nathalie Daoust, Tamas – Frozen in Time, Switzerland. Winner of the Grand Prize, 2009 Banff Mountain Photography Competition.
Nathalie Daoust
In this photo provided by NASA, the Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft uses a parachute to land near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009 with Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka, Flight Engineer Michael Barratt, and space tourist Guy Laliberté aboard. Padalka and Barratt are returning from six months onboard the International Space Station, along with Laliberté who arrived at the station on Oct. 2 with Expedition 21 Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Maxim Suraev aboard the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft.
NASA/BILL INGALLS
A woman takes a look at the decoration of the Chinese pavilion two days ahead of the start of the Book Fair in Frankfurt, central Germany, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009. China is this year's honorary guest at the book fair.
AP Photo/Michael Probst
Tourists enjoy the healthy mud in the Israeli Dead Sea resort of Ein Boqeq October 12, 2009.
MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images
RightNow Technologies, a company that creates customer service software, had hired Carroll to deliver a keynote speech this week at its conference in Colorado Springs, about 100 kilometres southeast of Denver.
Departing from Regina on Sunday, "the only direct flight to Denver was with United. So I flew United and my bag got lost," the Nova Scotia singer-songwriter told CBC News by phone on Thursday.
Carroll was delayed at Denver International Airport, where some United staffers ordered him to wait for his luggage which they said was simply delayed while an airport official urged him to leave the baggage claim area.
The bag eventually turned up on Wednesday.
"We will fully investigate what regretfully happened," United Airlines spokeswoman Robin Urbanski told the New York Times after the latest incident began making the rounds in U.S. media.
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Since Carroll released the song and online video United Breaks Guitars which politely but firmly skewers the airline and its baggage handlers for the summer 2008 incident and refusing to pay for the broken instrument he has been balancing his musical career with speaking engagements about consumer rights.
After his original video went viral (it's now approaching more than six million views online), he released a second video in August. He has spoken to United executives, who promised to improve their service, as well as at an airline passenger rights hearing in Washington.
The third video in his planned trilogy is forthcoming.
"I'm pretty sure I'm done the song I just finished it last week. The lyrics that I used sort of encompass what happened here this week so I might not have to rewrite it after all," he said.
The campaign's impact means that Carroll, the primary songwriter of folk group Sons of Maxwell, has been elevated to a sort of everyman-hero status.
"I went to Denver in the summertime and this Texas guy said 'Are you the YouTube guy?'" Carroll laughed, as he mimicked the man's Texan accent.
"People have enjoyed it [and] love it a lot. It's been good for my career so I dont mind talking about it."
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