Jan24
Here is the story about how passenger ingenuity can outpace rigid and unsustainable rules that prevent them from claiming their right for compensation.
This real life story is about musician Dave Carroll, a United Airlines passenger whose guitar was destroyed by the airline’s baggage handlers and who was denied compensation for the damage. Eight months later, after receiving a final “no” from United, he wrote a song publicly exposing the airline’s customer service and brand. It quickly went viral and, according to mainstream media “within four days of the song going online, the gathering thunderclouds of bad PR caused United Airlines’ stock price to suffer a mid-flight stall, and it plunged by 10 per cent, costing shareholders $180 million.”
United eventually backed down, stating that the company would “use the video internally as a unique learning and training opportunity.”
The massive publicity finally triggered a compensation offer to the passenger which, at his request was donated to charity.
It happened in 2009 and, as of November 2025, it reached over 30million views on YouTube only (still growing), adding to popularity of his book ‘United Breaks Guitars - The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media’.
The question remains: is it social media that passengers must use to protect their basic rights, or is it up to airlines to work harder to minimise the number of unpleasant passenger experiences and show more respect for customer claims when things go wrong? And, by doing so, increase their revenue.
But here are bigger questions: who should drive this kind of innovation?
Is it airlines, passengers, or both?
And also, can experience driven AI be able to support that effort and create synergy?
Here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
Keywords: AI, Customer Experience, Customer Loyalty
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