“United Breaks Guitars” Goes to Washington

Dave Carroll, the baggage-busted, guitar-disrespected Canadian musician and viral archnemesis of United Airlines, has announced that he has been invited to testify before Congress in a September 22 hearing concerning passengers rights.

Dave has not yet released more information than this, but anyone wanting or needing to learn more about his appearance should follow Dave on Twitter. (He also has a Facebook page and a web site.)

I expect that Dave’s testimony will happen before the Senate’s Science, Commerce, and Transportation Committee, in support of S.213, the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act of 2009.

C-SPAN publishes the complete Congressional hearings schedules on this page, which includes links to streaming audio of the hearings as well. (As of the date of this post, information about the 9/22 S.213 hearing is not yet available on the C-SPAN site.)

[ As it turns out, Dave Carroll and Jeremy Cooperstock (here and here), are two talented, no-nonsense Canadians who are the bane of United's existence. I have it on good authority that Glenn Tilton, United CEO and magisterial head of the Air Transport Association, is quite concerned about Canadian meddling in U.S. air space. He has apparently dispatched an envoy (UAL spokesperson Robin Urbanski; new BFF of Dave but ... hmmm ... not Jeremy) to her Majesty, the Queen of England and Canada and elsewhere, to formally request that she (the Queen) constrain her citizenry from pestering the corporate royalty of the United States' formerly preeminent airline. -- Ed. ]