072524 - JayRatliff

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Every week at this time we welcomein our aviation and travel expert. His
name is mister j. Ratliffe,and it's a good news onlors. We
got a breaking news story in theaviation world today. So Jay Ratliff,
first of all, happy day,good morning. Good to have you back
on for your weekly segment. Ohpleasing, good morning to you. Well,
let's dive in here. I gotsome other topics to get to.
But breaking during the broadcast today isa Southwest Airlines has announced that they're finally

(00:23):
going to get rid of that open, open seating cattle call type thing that
they do to get everybody on theplane. It's going to be a thing
of the past. Give us thelatest. Well, the Southwest Airlines,
you know, they used to havethis unofficial motto of open seating, sit
where you want, just like achurch. But fifty years now that they've
been doing that, they're finding outthat that's simply not the best mode of

(00:45):
operation for him from a logistics standpoint. And there's a lot of things that
are driving this. First and foremost, premium seating. When you can have
charge more for either the premium seatsof an aisle or a window or an
exit row or ball kid that's goingto allow them to generate quite a bit
of money. Southwest for decades wasthe airline that made money when no one

(01:07):
else could. They had a quarterthat they had lost recently, two hundred
and thirty one million dollars in thequarter, and they had three hundred and
sixty seven million I think in thesecond quarter that was a profit, but
still far and away from what they'reused to. Obviously, they're battling the
Boeing issues that we've talked about withsome of the problems that are going on
there, but they're saying, look, we're taking very deliberate and urgent steps

(01:30):
to you know, tackle some ofthese revenue challenges that we have. But
you know, to me, thebiggest thing this is going to do.
It's going to make those fifty threewheelchairs and pre boarding I hope disappear.
Maybe not, but we'll see becausebeing open seating a lot of people would
you know, throw grandma into awheelchair who didn't need it and she and
her entire party could board early.So we'll see if that doesn't help there.

(01:53):
But we saw this coming for awhile, so no big surprise,
but you know, it shows thatSouth even Southwest Airlines, is going to
have to amend their operation with someof the changing airline scenery that we have
right now, and I think that'svery apparent. Here wasn't the reason that
they were so slow. If Irecall when they had that big breakdown a

(02:14):
couple of Christmases ago that shut themdown across America const all sorts of problems.
I heard that one of the reasonsthey weren't on an assigned seating is
their software it would not support it. They had to update the entire back
end of the reservation system in orderto get to this assigned seating. Is
that accurate. I'd say that's partiallyaccurate. The biggest thing was, it's

(02:37):
the way we've done things for years, darn it, and that's the way
we're going to keep doing it.But it's obviously something that has to be
changed. But yeah, a coupleof Christmases ago, their computer system crashed
and it came out then that theywere using a computer system that was developed
and implemented in the mid nineteen nineties. Last century. Now they've not totally

(02:58):
upgraded that, which is the reasonthat Southwest Airlines perfect segue my friend,
thank you, had zero issues withthis later update issue that impacted airlines last
Friday and through the weekend. Theywere the airline that was unaffected, and
the reason was their computer was sold. It wouldn't take the new upgrades on
anything. So they dodged that missilewithout being scathed. Now Delta Airlines,

(03:22):
on the other hand, goodness,they canceled five to six thousand flights over
a few day period of time.They had more cancelations over the weekend than
they had in the entire year.They had hundreds of thousands of passengers that
were stranded across the country, someof which who are still trying to make
it to their destination. And Iremember when Delta went one hundred days one

(03:45):
summer without a single flight cancelation anywherein the world. That's normally how good
they are, and which is whythis latest round has just batterment in ways
that they've never before experienced. You, Southwest was operating like on Windows ninety
five or something. It's where's thatfloppy disk? I gotta update this thing?

(04:06):
Right, They weren't even on Windowsninety eight. Yet they're still on
Windows ninety five. And hey,it helped them out helped them hold together.
You mentioned those preboards that they have, those twenty wheelchairs. One of
my buddies who works for Southwest Airlinesis they call them Jesus flights because they'll
load twenty wheelchairs in, help allthe cripples and all the old people,

(04:26):
and get everybody in their seats,and then twenty chairs are lined up at
the destination and like one person getsoff, he gets in a wheelchair.
Everybody got henled on the airplane out. Yes, that's a term we use
in the industry, and the reasonis that you get to preboard using a
wheelchair, but when you get there, you gotta wait for everybody else to
get off before you get your wheelchair. I don't need it now, and

(04:47):
I'm good. I'll hobble on outhere, and off they go. The
miracles that happen on board the airlinesof Southwest Airlines. How to stretch your
hands towards the Southwest plane. Rightnow, there you go, Feele the
Firs. It's an airline with heartand for all the right reasons. Apparently
I got it all right. Let'sget to other topics. I love that
phrase than Jesus flights. Let's diveinto a couple of other topics. It

(05:12):
hasn't been received a lot of coveragebecause it happened in Nepal, But a
pretty dramatic plane crash happened there andonly one person survived. It was caught
on video. Yeah, and thatvideo is just horrific to watch. But
it was a situation where you hadnineteen people on board. It was a
Canadian built Bombardier aircraft. It wasa CRJ two hundred seats fifty people.

(05:34):
A lot of us that got usedto those in the late nineties and you
know when they kind of overtook theindustry. Very few of them are being
used right now in the United Statescommercially. But this aircraft, it was
Sore Airlines based out of Nepal.They were flying out of Campman Do and
this aircraft was not operating as apassenger airplane. It was being ferried from

(05:57):
one airport to another because it hadsome technical issue that they felt like they
would be best fixed at another location. Save nineteen people aboard this flight,
fifteen technicians, two extra crew members, and two that were family members of
those that were traveling, so nineteensouls on board. This airplane takes off
and immediately encounters problems banks and thengo straight down and crashes. The fact

(06:18):
that the captain, who was theonly survivor, was able to survive as
a miracle in itself. But thefamilies are very upset because as of the
last report, they had not heardanything from the airline, and they're wondering
what kind of technical issues were youneeding to fix, and how serious were
they and did those technical issues contributeto this particular crash. Obviously, the

(06:42):
investigations ongoing, but the poll doesn'thave what we would call a really stellar
safety record, and it's a reminderfor me to tell of those that are
traveling. If you're going to remotelocations and you don't recognize the airline you're
flying on, you can go tothe State Department's website and you can look
for airlines that you should perhaps consideravoiding, just like there's certain destinations around

(07:05):
the world that the State Department saysfor Americans we don't recommend or we recommend
caution if you're going to some ofthese parts. It's great if you're going
to be taking an international trip kindof off the beaten path, as many
people do, because it just allowsyou to make sure that the you know,
the airlines and tour operators and locationsyou're going to are still considered you

(07:26):
know, safe for us as wetravel. Fortunately, we haven't had a
domestic airline crash here in the UnitedStates in many years. But you send
me the story of a Southwest Airlinesflight. It's not the first that has
approaching an airport dropped to dangerously lowlevels. What's up with this? This
is the fourth time you and I'vetalked about this in like the last five
or six weeks. This latest wasa Southwest flight on approach into Tampa.

(07:51):
They're two miles out there, supposedto be I think just over two thousand
feet in altitude. They were likeat one hundred and ninety four feet.
It was unreal how low they were, and air traffic control tells them that
they and then they increased their altitude. But we had a flight to Southwest
going into Omoh. They were ninemiles out. They were supposed to be

(08:11):
in an altitude of three thousand feetor more and they're at five hundred feet.
They're buzzing a neighborhood at like twelvethirty in the morning, waking people
up, and it was air trafficcontrol that said, hey, we got
an alarm going off here that youguys are low altitude as everything okay,
And the crew said, yeah,we're fine, like nothing was going on,
and they were told get back upto where you need to be because
they were unbelievably low as well.This one was even more alarming. But

(08:37):
we also had a flight Southwest flightcoming out of Honolulu gets to one thousand
feet, stops and then this startsto descend and it gets to four hundred
feet over the ocean and then theypull back up. So we've had multiple
flights that have had issues with lowaltitude flights and we don't know why.
The FAA has opened up a safetyaudit to try to find out, you

(08:58):
know, is there some technical issuethat's going on with this, Yes,
they're Boeing aircraft. It can't bea training issue because you've got two highly
trained pilots on that flight deck toknow what they're doing. And these men
and women, many of them inthe military, I just can't fathom what
would allow them to think such alow altitude at distances well away from the

(09:18):
airport would be considered a safe operationof the aircraft. So there are so
many unanswered questions here. We reallydon't know which way to go, and
we're going to have to see wherethe investigation by the FAA takes us.
How much of the on approach,because sometimes I should have been the front
of the aircraft that I can hearthe automated voice in the cockpit going four
hundred feet three hundred feet? Howmuch of that is automated and they're being

(09:41):
decreation their altitude or how much ofthat is just their manual control? Are
they controlling this at all to godown that low or is it automatic?
You have flights that you can puton that automatic approach, and other times
that the crews are actually flying theairplane, which is encouraged because we don't
want pilots to lose any of thoseperishable skill that come along with flying.

(10:01):
And you're right, but a lotof times they that approach, you'll hear
on like the last hundred feet asthey're lining up, if they've already lined
up for the runway, but whenthey're about to touch down and under that
last one hundred feet or so,and especially the last fifty there's the countdown
that you'll hear where the automated automationwill tell the crew, you know,
just how close the tires are fromthe runway itself, and it just allows

(10:24):
them to provide for a more smootherapproach in landing. And sometimes we have
too much dependence on automation. There'sstill a group of people that are out
there saying that if we get ridof pilots and we have automated flights only,
then the Arab aviation sector would beeven safer than it is. I
don't agree with that, and you'reright, thankfully, we have to go

(10:46):
back to February of two thousand andnine, the last time that we had
an aviation disaster here in the UnitedStates. That was the Colgan Air crash
Continental Express flight that went down andBuffalo killed forty nine people from the aircraft
and one on the ground. Yeah, it seems like if these pilots,
even if it's on the automated system, and these pilots go, why are
we at four hundred feet right now? They would not be have to be

(11:09):
told by the tower, but they'renot getting the word of it in the
cockpit, which is very strange.And obviously the investigation is underway. Well,
we also had a pilot to twoSouthwest pilots that took off in I
think white planes are somewhere in NewYork that took off from a closed runway.
We have notems that are notifications allowingthe pilots to know if certain runways

(11:31):
are under under construction or if they'reclosed off for some other reason. And
this was a few minutes before theair traffic control station opened up, which
is common that you can take offin land without having the local facility operational.
But the pilots just missed the factthat this runway was closed. They

(11:52):
turned and took off. Now fartherdown the runway we had apparently construction equipment
that was on the runway itself.Fortunately long after they hit the rotation point
where the tires left the runway.But again, things that shouldn't be happening
are happening with pilots at Southwest,and you can't get a better group of
pilots. And that's why I'm justthinking, I just I cannot understand what's

(12:15):
been going on. Only yeah,real quick, keV hitted just a highlight
leveled. American Airlines flight attendants havereached a deal now and no strike is
going to be happening in the nearfuture. Yeah, I wasn't worried about
a strike. You and I hadtalked about that, because the administration would
have stopped stepped in and said,you know, get back to work and
let's hammer something out. But Iwas glad to see it because these or

(12:35):
these flight attendants are so deserving ofsome additional compensation. Here the starting salary
at American Airlines for a flight attendanttwenty seven thousand dollars, so low that
if you are stationed in the stateof Massachusetts, you qualify for food stamps
because of the cost of living.And remember, these flight attendts normally don't
get paid during the boarding process ordeplaning, even though if there's an emergency

(12:58):
evacuation required during either of those twotimes, they're like first responders getting everybody
off that airplane safely. And theidea they're not getting paid for it's always
bothered so many of us, especially, and I'm hoping this new contract will
at least give them some pay duringthat time. I think Delta pays flight
attendants fifty percent of their normal payduring that time, and I guess the

(13:20):
safety then's only fifty percent as muchas it should be during the flight.
Good luck, good luck a livingin the Massachusetts if you're a flight attendant.
For most of those places, theyshare a lot of accommodations. Eight
nine, ten, we'll share whatwe call the crash pad, because that's
just goes someplace to sleep and getback to the airport. Some of these

(13:41):
flight attendants are forced to sleep inthe airport terminal and you can't do that.
Yeah, what's it like traveling acrossthe country? Delays today? Yeah,
I really wish we'd had a goodday for this, but it's not.
It's Houston. Basically draw a linefrom Houston up towards the northeast of
New York. Anything niece of thatwe've been having problems with, including Houston

(14:03):
earlier. We've got issues in Charlotte, Atlanta, has been hit with delays
in Philadelphia, d C. Andeventually New York anything west though it seemed
to be a pretty good shame.Jay Ratliffe, always a pleasure. I'm
going to pin you later today andjust catch up with you. But also
don't forget I'm off next week gettingmy son moved back to college. So
we'll on the radio. We'll atleast converse in two weeks, but we'll
chat later. Thank you, myfriend. I appreciate you hopping on the

(14:24):
program. Have good day, yougot it. Jratlift dot com. Jratlift
dot com. Always a pleasure tocatch up in the world of aviation and