Singer songwriter, musical theatre performer and former sitcom star (who doesn’t remember All Together Now) Jon English has called out Virgin Airlines for destroying his instruments, not once but twice in the last three months. Leaving his guitar and his keyboardist’s stage piano destroyed beyond repair after flying into Sydney on Saturday, English had the following to say to Virgin via Facebook.
“Although I arrived in Sydney in one piece, my guitar did not. This is the second incident in the last three months of Virgin Airlines baggage handlers running over our musical instruments with their baggage trailers at Sydney airport – my guitar, and my keyboard player’s $5000 keyboard.
“Well,it’s just not good enough Virgin. In fact it’s downright appalling. What are you going to do about it I say?”
Today I boarded a Virgin flight from my home town of Coffs Harbour, NSW, happy that the severe bad weather of the last…
Posted by Jon English on Saturday, January 9, 2016
Striking a chord with social media, the post getting thousands of likes and shares, it wasn’t long before a Virgin rep popped in the comments for some damage control. Entering into a brief exchange via private message, English later provided an update to fans, sharing that the airline has agreed to investigate his claims further.
“But we’ve made it clear that it’s not just about us, it’s about all musicians travelling with their instruments now and in the future,” English was quick to make clear.
“We want to know how this happened to us, not once but twice, and what they are going to do to ensure it doesn’t happen to any of us again.”
In response to all this Virgin’s GM of ground operations Roger Lindeman told the The Daily Telegraph that; “Effective today I will personally get involved and ensure we tighten up our procedures and our approach in general to the handling of musical gear.
“And I will ensure Jon’s latest incident is fully investigated and action taken when we identify where the damage occurred.”
