IHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff talks about the week in aviation

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Always a pleasure to have you onthe program. Jay, Thanks for joining
us. Hey, good morning,good morning. You know when I walk
around and see all these seventeen andeighteen year olds on D Day, I
kind of cringe, and then Ithink about the anniversary today and it's those
kind of kids that save the world, isn't it the truth? I was
talking about that in the five o'clockhour as well, and the sacrifice,

(00:21):
and you know, could we beup, could we stand up to that
kind of challenge, you know,just basically walking into a flurry of bullets
and seeing your buddies and your comradesdrop right around you. Read an interesting
perspective letter from this morning. Itappears in the Wall Street Journal under a
larger article about these kind of things. Check it out, James Freeman,
you don't land softly, and it'sthe last article he read. It was

(00:44):
a letter from Captain George Montgomery,the US Army's eighty second Airborne Division to
his wife, basically summing it up. You know, he being so near
death, what he was thinking aboutwas his wife and thinking about you know,
he didn't think he was going toget through it. It was topmost
in my mind at the time hesaid, I think I can save.
My love for you has been prettywell tested. So but that's what's important

(01:07):
in life, those kind of things, your loved ones, not the trivial
crap that we tend to engage inall the time and the division that's being
sowed in this country. But theother thing that I'm glad you brought up.
D Day. Part of that articlealso talked about the gliders and apparently
the gliders were the first thing toland inland so it could clear the way
for the troops landing on the beach. Those gliders were death traps, man,

(01:30):
those wooden count they toot them woodengliders and you landed on top of
machine gun nests and all. Myword, it's just I just can't imagine.
But the bravery is just amazing,amazing, amazing. Anyway, Pivoting
over Boeing having another tough week,it seems we start with the Emirates president
and we talked when there's whistleblowers comingout of the woodwork again, and he

(01:53):
got a couple of points here onbowing. But let's start with Emirates president
giving Boeing a little bit of amouth. Well, he spoke at the
International Air Transport to Association conference onSunday, and he was asked about the
Boeing issue, and he said Boeingright now is, in his words,

(02:14):
ruthlessly pursuing cost cuts. He saidit started about ten or fifteen years ago
when Boeing went from an engineering ledfirm to a cost cutting kind of a
bean counter type leadership, and hesaid, ever since they made that pivot,
it's never been the same. They'vebeen prioritizing profits over engineering, and

(02:36):
the engineering excellence that Boeing used tobe known for, especially from a safety
standpoint, is gone. And hesaid they continue to outsource everything they can.
The quality control is not in placesit obviously needs to be, and
he said he's just tired of it. And of course that is similar to
what we're hearing from United and otherCEOs around the world that are saying it's

(03:00):
it's really impacting us where we're goingto be creating hundreds of millions in less
in revenue because we were anticipating havingthese twenty thirty forty fifty eighty additional aircraft
this year without and now we can'tdo it. United Airlines are going to
hire fifteen thousand people this year,and they've came out and said, well,
right now, maybe ten thousand becausewe can't hire the rest because we

(03:23):
don't have the airplanes that we thoughtBoeing was going to be able to get
us. And Brian went, whenyou look at the mess that Boeing has
created, and then you recognize howlong it's going to take for them to
properly turn this around. We're talkingyears. So if their impact right now
is severe on the Ryanairs who arenothing but seven thirty sevens in Europe,

(03:44):
and you have United an American inDelta, so many others, and of
course Southwest who only flies Boeing seventhirty sevens. It's at a time when
the industry is supposed to be growingand getting bigger. We can't keep up
with what we have, and Boeingself inflicted the wounds, if you will,
here is really hammering the industry allover the world. Is this just,

(04:05):
I mean, perhaps that the tailend of what we have seen as
a consequence of these cost cutting measures, and they're they're fair too to focus
on safety. Do you think Boeingactually got the message maybe perhaps earlier on
and we're just still talking about theaftermath of their laziness and their mouth feasans
but that they understand now and they'vegot their act together, or or am

(04:27):
I just being overly optimistic? Uh? One if I cussed, and two
if I cussed on the area,wouldn't you? I would say absolutely not,
Bryan. Five years ago Boeing shouldhave learned their lessons. Okay,
there were two aircraft crashes killed threehundred and forty six people. The blame
was everywhere. It was on thepilots, it was on the training,

(04:48):
it was a new airline, itwas blocked by anything but Boeing. And
we even had some of the socalled aviation experts that know a lot more
than me that we're doing a lotof the national shows as I was doing
during that time, saying oh,these airplanes are fine, They're safe,
and I'm saying no, there's questions, and we got to ground the airplanes.

(05:08):
And Boeing came out later and ofcourse it was revealed that yes,
there were deficiencies with the airplane.It was something they were rushing through production,
and in essence they were responsible forwhat took place. They didn't even
tell the pilots about that aggressive antistall system that would rip the control out
of their hands for ten seconds ata time. Pilots were unaware of any

(05:30):
of that. So Boeing told usfive years ago that they were sorry,
they've learned. It's going to getbetter. And now as we listen to
the whistleblowers and we see the evidenceat hand, Brian, not only have
they not learned, it's almost anarrogance of we're going to change. We're
not going to stop doing anything thatwe've been doing because we need to get

(05:50):
these airplanes out as quickly as possible, because that's when we get paid.
I would have thought the death ofhundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people would
have caused a company to sit upand say, hey, what we're doing
is wrong, But obviously that's notthe case. I don't believe Yeah,
I say all the time when Boeingexecutives talk, I hear Charlie Brown cartoon
parents talking, because I don't listen. I don't care. I don't believe

(06:16):
you. So if that adequately answersyour question, yes, that's that's where
I stand. Knocked it out ofthe park. Don't pull your punches like
you're doing. You're you're you're reallyholding back on your criticisms there, James.
No, I'm telling you, where'smy blood predator man be r in
here somewhere. Yeah, we'll comeright back more with I heard media aviation
Jay ratliff it from fifty five kthe talk station. Keep your stupid mouth

(06:41):
shut, Hey, forty I foryou have KARS talk station. Apparently Boeing
sucks. Eh. I heard mediaAma snicks for Jay ratlift. Let us
move forward and over to uh well, losing luggage. And I'm glad you
had this on the list because Isaw this interesting article about baggage handlers saying,

(07:01):
you know, here's a tip foryou. Pro tip, don't tie
ribbons on your suitcase. You know, people can see. I'm like,
oh, there's my bag over there, it's got the big bright green ribbon
on it or whatever, because thebaggage scanning system is automated, and if
you've got a ribbon that interferes withthat, they can't automatically check it in,
so it'll get pulled out and thenit might be delayed getting to your

(07:23):
next flight or even ending up inthe baggage carousel. So pro tip on
that one. But the other thingand I thought this was comical and I
wanted to bring it to your attention. Apparently, do not fly with marzipan,
you know, the almond paste.Oh yeah, it's because they said
when they scan it, like throughthe X ray or whatever, it has
the actual same appearance as a plasticexplosive based upon its composition and density.

(07:47):
So I thought it was funny becausewho flies with marzipan? Apparently that's happened
before, though, well it hasin the bag. I mean, the
protocol is you get the bag toa location and there's security protocol that has
to take place. It's not youknow, Joe the baggage handler that's opening
ripping open the bag to see what'sin there, and you're talking about something
that's going to severely delay your luggage. That's going to be it. And

(08:09):
I always remind people to put acopy of your itinerary inside the bag right
before you close it, so thatif all those tags come off they open
it up, boom, they notonly know who it belongs to, they
know where you're at because they've gota copy of your itenerary right there.
Brilliant pro tips that galore this morningfor travel and moving over to all right,
So which airline a we're going tobe most likely to have our bags
lost on jay? Okay, well, so let's talk about the worst ones.

(08:33):
Who do you think is at thebottom of this list? The worst
carrier? Oh, I don't know, Maybe one of those discount carriers.
Perhaps it's actually United Americans allotting forlast play great, Yeah, per per
one thousand bags handled, American willmishandled zero point eight two United zero point
seven four bags. So, inother words, those bags, you know,

(08:58):
if you're flying United or American,it's it's going to be difficult to
see. But I love talking aboutwho's on top because I don't I think
I could give you three choices anda chance, and I don't know if
you could get it. But thisairline was so good you could double the
number that they have and they'd stillbe in first place. Spirit, they

(09:18):
are so far in first place.There's nobody even close. Was it Spirit?
No? No, the Spirit's solidlyin seventh or eighth place. Yeah,
okay, what was the aircraft?What was the airline? You you
were singing the praises and eighth Ohbreeze, yeah, breeze, yeah,
breeze. I don't think Breeze ison this list because this was from last

(09:39):
year, and yeah, give mehad a specific size. So but you
know you're you're you're leaning in theright direction big time. Oh go ahead
and give me the discount carricter thisnumber one, it's Allegiant Allegiance. Allegiant
took top honor big time, zeropoint one point eighth. Not only is
Allegiance on the top spot here lastyear, because these are two thousand and
three numbers, they didn't deny boardingto a single passenger, the only airline

(10:03):
that did not involuntarily bump someone.They're on time performance better than eighty percent.
They in Delta the only two thatcan can claim that they have the
lowest number of canceled flights percentage wise. And yes they mishandle for your bags
anybody else. Now, a lotof people that are familiar with the industry,
you'll say, now, Jay,that's because there's a lot of NonStop

(10:24):
flights and all you got to dois put the bag on there and it's
going to make it true. Butthere's other carriers like Frontier and Spirit many
times that do not have the connectingflights, and they had all kinds of
problems from the standpoint of mishandling luggage. So yeah, Allegiant is I told
you they were zero point one eightinstances per thousand bags handled. Second place
was Endeavor, which is a Deltasubsidiary. They were zero point four to

(10:48):
one, So that shows you theseparation between first and second. Southwest came
in the third, Delta fourth,Hawaiian, and then Frontier Airlines kind of
wrapped up the top six. ButAllegiant to continues to do things so right
that it is it's striking and wellI think it was Wall Street Journal three
months ago. You and I talkedabout they ranked the best airlines in two

(11:11):
thousand and four, and Allegiance camein third. It was Delta first,
a last airline second, Allegiant third. So they're working hard and look,
I love having them here in Cincinnati, and it's going to be interesting to
see just how much better they canimprove things. Well, the better they
are, the more competition the otherguys have, and that will force them
to perhaps get their act together.Please, it's the way capitalism is supposed

(11:33):
to work. American airlines flight attendantsmay be striking. What's the story in
this one? Yeah, the unionand the management for American has been trying
to hammer out a contract for thelongest time. Brian and the union's finally
gone public and told their flight attendants, look, we may have to bury
real possibility we made to need togo on strike. Now they've made this
public for the obvious reason, they'retrying to put some apply some pressure to

(11:56):
management to try to get a littlebit closer. And I think the management
did come out and off from abouta seventeen percent pay raise, but I
don't think it wasn't consistent with whatsome of the other flight attention in the
industry were making. So at leastthey probably are getting closer. But what
I wanted to remind everyone is,even though this talk of a strike is
out there, if you are anAmerican Airlines frequent flyer, I would not

(12:20):
allow that to deter me from anyfuture reservations. That's just me speaking,
because if they were to go onstrike, the administration would step in immediately
and stop it, get them rightback to work. So it might be
a strike at the last two orthree hours if that that's consistent with what's
happened before. I think Bill Clintonhad to order you as Airways back to
work after they went on strike foran hour or two, because it's just

(12:43):
too detrimental to the aviation industry andto our economy if there's a disruption in
that air service. So I wouldn'tbe worried about it. But Brian,
this is a group of people thatthey start probably twenty seven to twenty eight
thousand dollars a year, and ifthey are based in Boston in Massachusetts,
they aren't just enough that they canqualify for food stamps in the state of

(13:07):
Massachusetts. The flight attendants are sleepingin airports, they're sleeping in their cars.
They are getting together eight or tenof them in an apartment as kind
of a crash pad to try tohelp cut costs because they simply cannot afford
the cost of living at a lotof these larger cities, which are typically
the hubs. So if we hadthe optics of pilots sleeping in baggage claim

(13:30):
or at the airport or sleeping intheir cars, there would be an uproar
that would demand something to be done. And the idea that these flight attendants,
who are our emergency evacuation specialists,who I'm sorry, I want them
at the top of their game everysingle time. The stuff they're going through
is it's just not right and hopefullysomething soon can get done fair enough and

(13:52):
pivoting over to early boarding fees,Southwest going to jack them up. Huh
oh yeah. Of course Southwest isopen seating, so it's all about getting
on board as quickly as you can. And they've announced that they are going
to increase their upgraded boarding and itnow comes in depending on the segment,
anywhere from thirty dollars to board earlyto one hundred and forty nine dollars a

(14:15):
passing airline to board Earth Now beforeit used to be the cap of eighty
dollars. But you know what thisis going to do. Some people are
going to say, I'm not payingfifty or one hundred and forty nine dollars,
Hey, I need a wheelchair please, because they know they get there
and not only they board Brian,but their entire family boards first, so
you don't have to pay the fee. They'll grab the wheelchair and go.

(14:37):
We've seen forty fifty wheelchair people beingput on board an airplane with their entire
family, and by the time alot of these early boarders who paid for
it start to board this so openseating sixty five percent of the aircraft has
already taken. Now Southwest is powerless. It's not their fault because the Department
of Transportation makes it clear that theseindividuals have to board firm and they do

(15:01):
and that's why every airline has itthat way. If I could do it,
I would make these people board lastso that they would have plenty of
time, but they would get what'sleft over. And I promise you big
time, you would not have fortyeight wheelchairs when it's a brilliant solution to
the problem. You're going to geton the plane. They're going to have
your seat there. You're not goingto get in the way of everybody else

(15:24):
trying to board. I'm sorry you'redisabled and require a wheelchair, but no,
it's it's not going to delay you. You're still going to get to
your destination. I mean absolutely,it's But the problem is that the Department
Transportation rules are very, very straightforward, and you have CEOs from Frontier and
a lot of other airlines that they'retalking about just the abuse that's taking place,
and airports don't have enough wheelchairs toaccommodate all of these fake people.

(15:48):
That have these types of things.So airports are being forced to go buy
a bunch of wheelchairs that they reallydon't need. They've got to hire additional
people to help assist these individuals gettingon the plane. And we're forty eight
needed to get on and only fiveneeded to get off. It's pretty clear
that the wheelchairs were just a vehicle, a device, a scheme that people
were using to get on the airplane. And sadly, I think the Southwest

(16:11):
Airlines, as they raised the earlyboarding fees, it's only going to make
that problem worse when during one ofthe busiest summer travel seasons we've ever seen.
I hear you all day long,a art mediavah. Next for Jay
rattl if we always in on Hugblays, I know it's really windy out there.
By weather forecast ridiculously said we'll havegusts as high as ready twenty nine

(16:32):
miles per hour. And how theywere to figure that one out Somewhere around
that. I think the rounding itup to thirty would have been better,
but gusty wins anything going on byway of travel today. Look, it's
got to get about fifty before Ieven like yawn but we're going to be
okay with that. The we hadissues in New York this morning, they've
cleared. I think Atlanta might havesome issues later in the day as well,
Washington, d C. Other thanthat, looks like it's gonna be

(16:53):
a very good data flying, greatdata fly. It's always a great day
to talk to. I heard mediaaviationers for Jay rattlve. I enjoy it.
Jay, I thank you for comingon the show and as always,
wish you the best of health andloved your better half. And we'll talk
next Thursday. Looking forward to it, my friend. Thank you. Take
you eight fifty right now, fortyfive krc DE talk station. I love
referring folks to Foreign Exchange Westchester alocation