Musical instruments damaged on Aer Lingus flight

Irish Steve

Just had a message from a friend who travelled to Spain recently, as part of a music group. 2 guitars (in hard cases) were badly damaged on the flight back to Ireland.

Has anyone else had problems of this sort, and how did Aer Lingus respond to the claims? They are obviously upset about the damage, and are wondering how best to apply pressure to Aer Lingus to get this sorted.

Locker10a

A formal complaint or baggage claim can be made on their website, thats about it. Hope they get sorted, its a very unfortunate. They will want to investigate where or who this happened, in Spain or in Dublin etc so an investigation will be opened and to start this they will need to file a formal complaint.

notharrypotter

The term hard case refers to the structure of the case.
There is still room for movement inside.
Was the exterior of the hard case damaged?

Irish Steve

Not sure about the condition of the outer case, but one of the guitars has been holed by impact damage from the corner of a box, or a hard corner suitcase, it's a triangular shape point damage rather than a crush damage, the other is a crush type damage that could have been as a result of it being at the bottom of the can rather than top loaded, or somebody standing on it.

Given they paid significant extra charges to have the instruments carried, and they would not have gone through the normal baggage handling systems, it will unfortunately be down to some crass handling at one or other of the places it was handled, and having worked for several years on baggage handling at Dublin a while back, I can think of a number of ways that the damage could have occurred.

Formal registered letter claims have been sent to Aer Lingus, but so far, they have not been acknowledged, let alone responded to, which is why they are concerned.

pepe the prawn

Best thing to do is contact them via twitter, it's the only way these days to guarantee a response. Once something like that goes public they'll do whatever is necessary to put a cork on it and stop it from becoming today's trending news.. They'll likely reply with a contact number for you to ring to speak with a human being as opposed to a machine.

Pat Dunne

Irish Steve wrote: »

Formal registered letter claims have been sent to Aer Lingus, but so far, they have not been acknowledged, let alone responded to, which is why they are concerned.

Pure waste of time. Get on social media a kick up a racket! Have a photo of the damage included in the post.
You'll be amazed at how quickly they'll respond.

Irish Steve

They've already put it on facebook, and I've passed on the message about using Twitter as well. Pictures are on line as well, so it will be interesting to see where this goes.

Thanks

duskyjoe

Jeez , go on twitter and see the comments about their customer service.....yikes.

ectoraige

Aer Lingus are terrible when it comes to baggage issues in my experience. You have to keep hounding them to get it resolved, they really don't want to know. If they say they'll call you back, don't hold your breath.

PukkaStukka

Is small claims court worth a punt?

Locker10a

My previous airline required owners of Cellos to purchase window seats for their instruments, which would be secured in the window seat by the crew. Can or do Aer Lingus offer the same for large musical instruments?

Irish Steve

PukkaStukka wrote: »

Is small claims court worth a punt?

Possibly, given that 2 guitars were damaged on the same flight. I will know more later, as there's a group meeting this evening, which should provide some more information. Twitter has provoked a response, as to if it's the right one or not, I won't know till later, I'm NOT a twitter fan.

notharrypotter

Irish Steve wrote: »

Not sure about the condition of the outer case, but one of the guitars has been holed by impact damage from the corner of a box, or a hard corner suitcase, it's a triangular shape point damage rather than a crush damage, the other is a crush type damage that could have been as a result of it being at the bottom of the can rather than top loaded, or somebody standing on it.

If the outer case is undamaged then it deformed under pressure and was not suitable to protect the instrument within.
If the outer case is damaged then that is a different argument.

kona

Saw this yesterday. Surely a suitable case would prevent this? A hard case with a foam cutout inside would prevent this damage.

Surely any professional musician would have a case like this, as im sure they must prepare a expensive instrument for flights where baggage holds may be at quite a low temperature.

notharrypotter

kona wrote: »

Saw this yesterday. Surely a suitable case would prevent this? A hard case with a foam cutout inside would prevent this damage.

Surely any professional musician would have a case like this, as im sure they must prepare a expensive instrument for flights where baggage holds may be at quite a low temperature.

Foam inserts won't work as its flexible.


The shell of most of the poly carbonate cases is fine for light protection but is not be intended for serious use.

Purpose built cases are ideal but have a cost in terms of weight.
Even then if there is any possibility of movement by the instrument forget it.

Pipetool

https://www.aerlingus.com/travel-information/baggage-information/musical-equipment/

Irish Steve

OK, the cases used were hard cases, and both cases were significantly damaged also. The penetrated case has puncture damage, the crushed case has been significantly disrupted by whatever came in contact with it.

They were checked hold items, and the relevant surcharge had been paid, and the group concerned have travelled over a number of years to a variety of places in Ireland, Europe and the USA with their instruments with no problems, or damage. Although not directly part of the music group, I was on the same flights, and there was no turbulence that might have caused the damage, whatever happened, the damage was caused on the ground by the way that the instruments were handled. What's not yet been determined is if the damage occurred during loading in Spain, or off loading in Dublin.

I don't want to speculate about what may have caused the damage, suffice to say that three years of working on the ramp at Dublin, I saw a number of occasions where damage to items occurred, and most of them were due to incidents that could and should have been avoided, if the handlers were taking correct and appropriate actions.

kona

notharrypotter wrote: »

Foam inserts won't work as its flexible.

A hard plastic case eg polyethylene, with a foam insert custom shaped to the instument to prevent movement would be enough for the usual bangs.

kona

Irish Steve wrote: »

OK, the cases used were hard cases, and both cases were significantly damaged also. The penetrated case has puncture damage, the crushed case has been significantly disrupted by whatever came in contact with it.

They were checked hold items, and the relevant surcharge had been paid, and the group concerned have travelled over a number of years to a variety of places in Ireland, Europe and the USA with their instruments with no problems, or damage. Although not directly part of the music group, I was on the same flights, and there was no turbulence that might have caused the damage, whatever happened, the damage was caused on the ground by the way that the instruments were handled. What's not yet been determined is if the damage occurred during loading in Spain, or off loading in Dublin.

I don't want to speculate about what may have caused the damage, suffice to say that three years of working on the ramp at Dublin, I saw a number of occasions where damage to items occurred, and most of them were due to incidents that could and should have been avoided, if the handlers were taking correct and appropriate actions.

Sounds like the instruments got a serious impact so! Id imagine that they have a case so.

No pun intended.

Pat Dunne

Locker10a wrote: »

My previous airline required owners of Cellos to purchase window seats for their instruments, which would be secured in the window seat by the crew. Can or do Aer Lingus offer the same for large musical instruments?

I witnessed a musician do this very thing on an EI flight out of MAD some years ago.