AN “indestructible” guitar case made from the same material as a Boeing 787 and costing £1,000 has been destroyed by Easyjet baggage handlers.
Musician John Challis posted a video recording the moment he picked up his carbon fibre Crossrock case in Berlin.
The guitarist and singer from South London shows a deep crack, gouges and scrapes in the case while pointing out it is designed to withstand 1,000kgs of force.
John, 27, who has a combined total of 100,000,000 online views, then accuses the airline of damaging musicians’ equipment too often.
Easyjet apologised on Wednesday for the damage and said it was investigating the cause.
His classic case is described on Amazon’s website as “virtually indestructible”. The carbon fibre material gives a rare combination of enormous strength and light weight, making it attractive to, among others, the makers of aircraft.
So how the case came to be so severely damaged when John arrived at Berlin Tiegel Airport from Milan last Sunday remains a mystery.
The clip starts with John showing his guitar case with a massive hole through the material section of the case and the carbon fibre section which is clearly scratched.
He said: “Alrighty guys, it’s very rare I do this, but I’ve just got off the plane from Italy and my brand new case is now completely ruined.
“This is a carbon fibre case from Crossrock who endorse me and sent me this out.
“This is supposed to withstand 1000kg of force.”
Whilst pointing at the case he says: “This is a crack straight through, luckily and this goes out to them, the guitar is ok, but the hinges are broken, the guitar is fine.
“However this case retails at $1400.
“I don’t usually do this, but if you guys want to tag easyJet, I’ll put a link underneath.
“Maybe they’ll actually take some notice because they’re doing this to a lot of musicians and I’m very fortunate that this case was strong enough to withstand it, but in any other case my guitar would be unworkable and the album would be un-do-able.
“They need to start taking care of musicians, because we put a lot of trust in them with something that is very valuable to us and clearly not very valuable to them.
“I mean look at that, that has been dragged all over the floor it’s soaking wet, it’s not acceptable.”
John posted the video onto Facebook and outlined his frustration at what had happened.
He said: “Destroyed $1400 carbon fibre case
“Not acceptable ; this has been obviously abused.
“Lucky the guitar is alive, share this around folks! Airlines need to be held accountable for what they do to musicians.”
The post also attracted multiple comments from followers who were outraged by the Airline’s actions.
David Scarlett said: “All airlines should respect people and their broken possessions. How would they like it if we cut their seats, broke their screens or threw their food on the floor!
Ferris Booyaa commented: “Absolutely shocking treatment.”
Chris Baker said: “What did they let the plane run over it? Good god what is wrong with people. No one respects anything anymore. Sorry that happened to you. And also to other musicians.”
Speaking this week, John described how Crossrock tested out the case.
He said: “They got a very large man to jump on the case from a stepladder.
“But, they also use a big pressing machine which is said to withstand 1000kg of pressure.”
He also said he was devastated with what had happened and has hoped that easyJet will take more notice of musicians possessions.
He added: “I’m very upset, this was the first flight the case was on. It’s clear that it was either intentionally damaged or not looked after all.
“It’s a shame, other airlines have managed to to destroy guitars, some of them £25,000 and upwards
“They’re not just guitars, they are the livelihood of these musicians.”
EasyJet have apologised for the incident and say they are looking into the issue.
A spokeswoman said: “EasyJet has apologised to Mr Challis for the damage caused to his luggage whilst in transit and we are investigating this with our ground handling provider at Berlin Tegel Airport.
“EasyJet flies on average over 1500 flights per day across more than 30 countries and incidents of damaged luggage are extremely low.”
