Last week on Public Radio I heard a story and interview about a professional musician whose guitar was allegedly broken by baggage handlers. United airlines denied the claim. This was a $3,500 guitar. In retailation, the musician wrote a song called United Breaks Guitars, and performed it on YouTube. So far, it has been viewed about six million times. Go to youtube and search for "united breaks guitars".
This seems very fishy. When I first heard the story my first thought was "what kind of case was it in?" I watched the video and the cases were depicted were not of the type suitable for air travel. Also, as a professional his instruments should have been insured against this sort of thing. Also, United denied the claim, and airlines often do play claims on broken luggage when a reasonable case can be made. Too many things with this story don't add up.
While I'm no big fan of United, I think there are sufficient flaws in the musician's argument to warrant the suspicion that he was somehow at fault. Minimally, a professional should realize that there are typically limits to the amount an airline will pay on a claim for an instrument and that insurance is important to the travelling musician for this reason.
For those not familiar with shipping guitars as baggage, it's similar to shipping a rifle or shotgun as baggage, but it's a lot more fragile. The only way to safely send them as baggage is in a case similar to our best rifle cases, where the instrument is encased in multiple layers of insulation.
Even if the handlers were at fault, this sort of breakage is still to be expected occasionally. I watched one of my bags drop from the tail cargo hold of a jet once. That was a drop of about 20 feet. It wasn't negligence. It was just a mistake. I saw the whole thing.
The reason this is relevant here is that it's similar to what can happen to a good rifle.
