United Breaks Guitars. Wizz Air breaks Uzbeks

My friend Dave Carroll has done it again.

He’s a fantastic musician, international speaker, hot-selling children’s book author, and all-around nice Canadian. But if you know him, it’s probably because of the irresistible 28-million view YouTube video “United Breaks Guitars.” United Airlines really regrets breaking Dave’s guitar and suffering decades of humiliation in return.

Dave had heard a lot of airline sob stories since United broke his guitar. But the latest and ultimate one finally touched his heart.

As he shared with me:

In 2023, Sukhrob Ubaydullaev was disrespected and was denied boarding his Wizz Air flight out of Rome to begin his trip home.   

He and three other unrelated Uzbeks were asked to confirm their nationality before they were all denied boarding and only the Uzbeks were refused.  No reason was given by Wizz Air.  No compensation was offered; not even reimbursement for the tickets he bought for the flight he was denied boarding.  

His student visa was expiring the next day so he managed to scramble some help to fund a ticket, that night, to Turkey, where Uzbeks are not required to have visas for the first 90 days. 

He was broke.  He lived on the streets of Istanbul for a week before finally getting the cheapest ticket home, two weeks later than he planned (flying from Turkey, to Russia, to Kyrgyzstan and driving the rest of the way to Uzbekistan from there).  This 24 year old man suffered through an Uzbek version of  Planes, Trains, and  Automobiles! 

Don’t get Dave mad

When someone as talented as Dave gets involved, whoever is doing wrong is going to regret it. In this case Wizz Air is the getting deflated.

The song and accompanying music video Dave made are, of course, catchy as hell. But what amazed me is:

• How talented do you have to be to fit the name “Sukhrob Ubaydullaev” into a song and make its scan properly? What rhymes with Ubaydullaev? (You’ll have to watch the video to find out.)
• How can a Uzbek and a Canadian bond over airline misery? It may be the second most universal human emotion, after love I suppose.
• How can a video made so cheaply look so awesome? Dave makes cheesy a desirable quality in video production.

What Wizz Air did was reprehensible. They deserve to suffer. I hope they do.

Enjoy the video.