British Airways Destroyed Our Guitar and Won’t Pay Up

Dear Tripped Up,

I’m a co-owner of Luaka Bop, a New York-based record label, and last June was accompanying the Staples Jr. Singers, a gospel group from Aberdeen, Miss., on a European tour. For a British Airways flight from London to Paris, three musicians were required to check their guitars, but only one instrument arrived in Paris with us. We filled out the forms and tried to impress upon the employee the importance of getting the guitars before the group’s show the next night. One of the two lost guitars did make it to Paris the next day, but British Airways couldn’t or wouldn’t deliver it, so our tour manager took a cab to the airport only to find it had closed. When the group returned to Britain by train, it was still down two guitars. We got one back a few shows later, and eventually found the other one at Heathrow Airport lost and found — with its neck snapped off and its case destroyed. We ended up with over $5,000 in expenses, which included renting guitars for a dozen shows and purchasing a guitar and case (both used) for Arceola Brown, the musician whose instrument was destroyed. We submitted most receipts with the original claim to British Airways on July 25, then added a few more on Aug. 7 and Sept. 11, for a total of $3,331. (We didn’t keep receipts for the rest.) But beyond receiving a case number, we never heard back, despite several email follow-ups. Can you help? Yale, New York City

Dear Yale,

If I could choose a tale to tell here, it would be the amazing one of how the Staples Jr. Singers recorded one album in 1975 that barely anyone paid attention to until decades later. Rereleased in 2022, the album received rave reviews and led to international tours for the group.

What a story. Alas, this space is devoted to issues far more mundane and familiar, like lost and destroyed luggage.

True, the lost luggage was cooler than most Samsonites: a Fender Telecaster that was recovered, and a Casio MIDI so thoroughly destroyed that I wonder if a baggage handler channeled Pete Townshend of the Who and smashed it to smithereens on the airport tarmac. The trouble you had getting reimbursed, however, is a wearily familiar tale in the Tripped Up inbox.

Along with photos of the Casio MIDI guitar, you sent me a frustrating timeline of your team’s efforts both to recover the guitars and later seek compensation for the rentals and the replacement for Mr. Brown’s guitar and case. (Sadly, Mr. Brown died on Nov. 16.)

I first intervened by writing…