“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.
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A Tale in Three Adverts
We can thank Dave Carroll and “United Breaks Guitars” for exposing the keen library of United videos on YouTube. Culling through them is like rummaging around in the old attic trunks of the airline industry. There are little slices of United history for every generation from the 1950’s to 9/11 to now. I’ve selected three to show here. All were produced within 2-3 years following the 9/11 attacks.
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