“United Breaks Guitars,” Song 3: Rhapsody in Bluegrass
As promised, Dave Carroll has released the third and final song of his United Breaks Guitars trilogy. In a special webcast event that happened live last night (recorded & available here; things gets started at about 04:30), Dave introduced the last video and spent another 45 minutes or so telling a more complete, behind-the-scenes story of both his broken Taylor guitar and United Airlines’ profoundly broken customer service organization.
Read more
Happy Valentines: An Homage to Lightfoot, and a Wish for You
Some things, throughout the course of our lives, are just timeless. A first, or lasting, love; a memorable journey to a far-away place; the joy of generations that is the birth of our children. As happens so often, when these moments are accompanied by a wonderful song, that is a treasurable bit of timelessness. I believe that we should never take love or music for granted. Your life has its own soundtrack, even if known only by you.
Read more
“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. 
]
Tale of the Tagues: An Airline Story, Part 1
When John P. Tague was promoted by United Airlines CEO Glenn Tilton to the post of President last month, it signaled an ironic rise in the career of an executive who may have been instrumental in the downward spirals of four failed airlines.
John Tague, born in 1961, is the son of Irving T. Tague, a memorable figure in U.S. aviation history who got his start as a Pan Am ramp worker in Alaska and was well-known later for leadership at three legendary U.S. carriers: Pan American, Hughes Airwest, and Midway Airlines.
Irving Tague worked his way up through the management ranks at Pan Am, eventually establishing himself as a master planner, scheduler, and economic analyst. While at Pan Am in the early 1970s, Tague’s skills as an operations manager were evident to principals from the aviation consulting firm of Simat, Helliesen, and Eichner (SH&E), who at the time also had billionaire businessman Howard Hughes as their client.
Read more
The Strategic and the Myopic
While United applies itself to the important problem of insufficient employee load factor on Chicago-area expressways, the number three airline in Denver (Southwest) is spending strategically to acquire its number two competitor (Frontier) and move within single digits of United’s market share in that important western hub.
Southwest EVP Ron Ricks explains the anticipated “Southwest Effect” in Denver, including expected impacts on Frontier’s employees, in the company’s blog on last Friday:
Read more
