About ten years ago we were doing a building job about 10 miles from ORD. We flew BDL-ORD on United and brought a chain saw in a case, carry-on with no problem. When we showed up for the return flight, we were told it was cancelled but there was another flight leaving in 15 minutes. When we went to check in they refused to let us on with the chain saw. We asked what to do? and they said if we washed out the gas tank with soap and water maybe the supervisor would let us on. We rushed to the rest room washed out the tank (probably ruining the chain saw) and the supervisor said NO. We were furious, there wasn't another flight, and the one we we now had seats on was leaving in 5 minutes. We said what should we do now? They were extremely nasty to us and said it wasn't their problem. We said can we leave it in their (Uniteds) baggage office? They said we could bring it down there but United would assume no responsibility for it at all. We raced down there, dropped off the chain saw and made it back to the plane just as they were getting ready to close the doors.

The story had a happy ending in which we called FEDEX after landing at BDL. FEDEX preformed exceptional customer service, picked up the chain saw with no labels on it, took care of the paperwork and had it to our place of business in less than 24 hours for only $39. I have always rented a chain saw at the job site since then.