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United Airlines' customer-relations woes continue, this time with a musician attempting to board with her centuries-old violin and being assaulted by a UA employee and having her hand injured.
A professional musician says a United Airlines employee tried to wrestle away her violin after she insisted on carrying the valuable antique onto her flight.
Yennifer Correia wanted to keep the violin, which is hundreds of years old and worth tens of thousands of dollars, with her while flying Sunday from St. Louis to Houston for work, reported KPRC-TV.
Federal law requires airlines to allow musicians to bring their instruments aboard as carry-on luggage, under certain conditions, but Correia said a United supervisor insisted she pay $50 to check in her violin.
"She was rude from the beginning, saying these are the rules — all you can take with you are some personal items on the plane, and the instrument is too big and it's not going to fit," Correia said.
[...] "She proceeded to throw herself on top of my suitcase, so she could take the rest of the sticker from my suitcase," Correia said. "At this point, we're both struggling — pulling the suitcase — and I'm trying to get her not to take the sticker from me."
This comes immediately after an incident where a wheelchair-bound woman was dropped by a UA employee, causing permanent injuries.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Friday June 09 2017, @07:34AM (5 children)
Some idiot at the Airline is required to know these exemptions. That is part of what they are paid to keep up to date on. So they have no excuse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @10:32AM (1 child)
Sure, it isn't an excuse, but like maintaining a system, having redundancies like letting them know ahead of time (maybe even asking for an employee escort) is good for when things go wrong. Especially when something is unusual (the cargo in this case).
Having re-read the OP, I could have chosen better wording so it didn't look like I was saying the victim was the one at fault. My apologies.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 09 2017, @01:10PM
I didn't interpret it as that you said the victim was to blame. But that the staff didn't know their own rules. Which the company has to take responsibility for and no one else.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by jmoschner on Friday June 09 2017, @11:41AM (2 children)
Per the FAA rules the instrument must be "in accordance with FAA safety regulations and the carrier’s FAA-approved carry-on baggage program." If the carrier's FAA-approved program limits the size of carry on items to smaller than a violin and case, then it has to be checked. Most Violin cases are over 30 inches long. United's FAA approved carry on policy states "The maximum dimensions for a carry-on bag are 9 inches x 14 inches x 22 inches (22 cm x 35 cm x 56 cm), including handles and wheels."
Unfortunately too many times had people not enforced the rules so this passenger (and so many others) felt entitled to bring on a carry on item that was too big.
That said, the United employee(s) were well out of line in how they handled the situation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 09 2017, @01:05PM
Depends whether the rules are more important than the person and violin. I'm not seeing the benefit of the rules here particularly since it prevents the passenger from bringing on a modest-sized carry on. 22 inches in the greatest dimension is a ridiculously small item - basically nothing bigger than a small briefcase.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday June 09 2017, @01:18PM
This is FALSE. Per the FAA's FAQ on musical instruments [transportation.gov]:
So, no, this passenger didn't feel "entitled" to bring on a carry-on item that was too large. There is a specific exemption written in for musical instruments by the FAA since 2012. The only way the airline could say no is if the instrument was actually too large to be stored in any available compartments on-board. Even very small commercial planes I've flown on with tiny overhead compartments could generally accommodate a violin case.