IHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff talks about the week in aviation

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Their boulevard down to two seventy fiveand again through the Locklin Split to Pattick.
You can find delays with an accidentright now on twenty seven at the
Hamilton cleaves out in the Ross areaseventy five north. Still slow in Sententucky
from Buttermilk Pike to the bridge.Jason Earhardt on fifty five KRC the talk
station six point thirty or other athirty here if you I have KCV talk

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station and get a copy of DTdel Toro's Patriots Promise and hand it over
to anybody who thinks they're having atough life. Wow, what an amazing
guy that was. And another amazingguy. Every Thursday at this time we
get to talk to iHeart me theaviation expert Jay Ratlift. Jay, welcome
back to the morning show. Myfriend now pleas a good morning, and
thank you for that. I appreciateit. I always love talking to you.

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Get a kick out of it,and it's always very informative. And
your favorite punching bag and even Baronsreferred to Boeing as becoming a punching bag
because of all the criticism they're taking, and justifiable criticism it is. You
got the Boeing seven thirty seven Maxjets that crashed because they didn't bother train
the pilots. The software changes gotthe door blowing off of that seven thirty

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seven Max by Alaska Air and ifyou're in space thanks to Boeing, you
can't make it back, which kindof sucks. And then you find out
the Department of Justice maybe getting readyto file action against you. What's going
on with this one, Jay,Well, you know, five years ago
after those two Boeing seven thirty sevenMax crashes with three hundred and forty six

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lives that were lost. In thesubsequent investigations you and I've talked about so
many times before revealed deception. Andthere's no other word to use on the
part of Boeing. Those officials triedto keep critical data from the FA inspectors,
trying to hide it. They liedto the investigators, airlines and pilots,
and look, in my opinion,some should have gone to jail now.

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Instead. Boeing was fined two hundredand forty four million dollars with promises
they would never do it again.Well, that assurance was outlined in a
deferred prosecution agreement. Something you're veryfamiliar with and it's now clear to the
non lawyer and me that the termsof that DPA have been violated because we
have all these whistleblower accounts, wehave FAA findings that collaborate those claims,

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and now the Department Justice has apparentlyuntil July seventh to determine if criminal charges
are to be filed against Boeing.So stand by, we're about to see
just how much lobbying power Boeing hasbecause Brian, if a sidestep this one,
I'm going to have to double myblood pressure medicaid because it just absolutely

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is beyond me that Boeing could knowinglyput lives at risk for an extended period
of time all those years ago andno one went to jail at all.
I think that sends the that sendsa horrific message, and it's like,
Okay, lives are expendable. It'sokay, I mean, it's an acceptable

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form of business. No no,no no. And that's one of the
reasons that the families of those thatwere lost are constantly all over Boeing.
They were in the in the testimonyroom with the Boeing CEO was there in
the background holding pictures of all therelatives that were lost, because, Yeah,
the Boeing provided an aircraft that wasdangerous and incapable of being flown by

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the pilots with a software that continueto malfunction that put lives at risk.
It's just an amazing story that itcould even happen. It was not a
challenge for Boeing to explain how thisnew software worked. You think that that
would just be the normal course ofaction. Something's different. It affects the
impact and the operation of the aircraft, especially in dangerous situations. Hey,

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here's how to properly react to it. Contrary to what we taught you one
of the prior version of the software. I mean, what kind of a
challenge is that it's zero? ButBrian, the problem was that on the
front of the airplane you have twoangle of attack sensors that would feed that
system. Now, Boeing, inan order to cut costs of grinding my

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teeth, got rid of one ofthose. So you now have a single
point of failure, which you neverhave in aviation. So when that single
point of failure fails, you're goingto have faulty information being fed to that
mcast system. And that's exactly whathappened. So even if the pilots have
been properly trained by Boeing, there'sno way they could have ever survived it,

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because that system would take control ofthe airplane and force it to go
down for a period of ten secondstrying to regain the necessary air speed to
come out of a stall. Itwould then release the control of the aircraft
back to the pilots, but onlyfor five seconds, and then it would
take over again. So it doesn'ttake much imagination to figure out if your

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low altitude the computer is playing theairplane down for ten seconds, pilots get
to fly it up for five,down for ten you run out of altitude
real quick. And sadly, that'sexactly what happened on those two aircraft.
Well, and you know, youand I always like to e gauge in
an occasional talk about stock. Sobefore we get a break here, I
keep waiting, you know, everytime that you and I talk and Boeing

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is a subject matter, which itfrequently is. For all these reasons,
I keep looking at the stock expectingyou know that this is that the market
has reacted to it. Now,I mean the lowest I'm looking over the
past three years is of trading itone hundred and twenty bucks back in Oh
I don't know, middle of twentytwenty two. But you know, it
hasn't lot that much value of laid. It's still up in one hundred and
high high one seventies, one hundredand seventy nine hundred eighty. It just

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hasn't impacted the stock dramatically. I'mshocked at that. Well, Boeing has
a lot of airplanes in back arderthat they have to produce and to deliver.
You have all the government contracts,you have a lot of things that
make Boeing in many people's eyes,too big to fail. So for some
people it's like, yeah, Imean when the stock dipped one hundred and
sixty five dollars a share, itwas a bargain. Some people grabbed.

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It's one hundred and seventy nine hundredseventy eight fifty right now. But you
know, beginning of the year wasit was north of two fifty. So
it certainly dropped from where it wasat. And you know, maybe if
you know, I'm asked it,could Boeing ever fail, Could Boeing ever
completely go out of business? No? Not immediately, but certainly over a
period of time. If they continueto do what they're doing through these deceptive

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practices, you would have to thinkthe business would go elsewhere. Another company
would come up. Right the problem. It would take twenty years for a
company to start building airplanes and beable to get to the point now where
they could actually compete with a Boeingor air Bus. And you know,
people know that, and as aresult, it's going to be Boeing or
Airbus. And yeah, whatever theproblems they had, they'll get over and

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then we'll go from there. Weplayed that game five years ago, and
I was an idiot to believe Boeingat the time that they were really going
to return to the safe practices ofold And they lied to us then,
and they're lying to us now.Wow, Jasub, there you have it
and boiled down eight thirty seven.Hold on, we're going to continue about
well, speaking of latitude among othertopics at Slow in Kentucky from Buttermilk Pikes

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at the Bridge. Keep your stupidmouth shut eight forty one. Video Curious
Toy Dog Daisy Oh my favorite soundbite. Jay Ratt left our eightyation expert
talking about a career airflight. Onthis story, it sounded really really bad
when you read that headline, like, oh my god, and but fifteen

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minutes to descend twenty seven thousand feet. I mean the airplane can make it
up to cruising altitude of thirty thousandfeet in about fifteen minutes or so.
So is this really a Is thisreally a horrific thing that happened? Jay,
it was not, but it involveda Boeing seven thirty seven Max.
So we have to make it soundyes, life verything. How was it?
No, it was a Korean airflight. It was cruising along and

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all of a sudden they had aproblem with the pressurization system. They had
an alarm that was triggered inside thecockpit. So as a result, they
had to descend under ten thousand feet. They had to do it rapidly because
of what was going on, andthey did so. It happened faster than
the norm, and we did haveseventeen passengers that required some hospitalization with airpain

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and other things, as the crewdid exactly what they were supposed to do.
But you're exactly right, Brian,You're the only one that brought that
up. Everybody I've talked to onthis is that to drop that fat that
far. They could have done ita lot faster than that, and one
of the reasons they probably did notwas probably due to the severity of whatever

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the issue was, or the factthat, you know, they just did
not want to create more of anissue by injuring passengers in the process.
But this was a Boeing seven thirtyseven Max aircraft or Korean Air The investigation
is going to continue. Boeing representativesas well as, if requested, the
National Transportation Safety Board will assist totry to find out exactly what happened,

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and then they'll start with the maintenancerecords to see if there was anything there
that indicated a past problem on thatthat might have been fixed or not,
and kind of go from there.Well, if you're if Kevin is going
to experience some form of depressurization,I suppose whatever happened on this Korean airflight
is better than the damn door blowingoff in the middle of the flight.
I will take this one over thatto be sure. And you know,

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it's a lot like the United Airlinesflight a few weeks ago that was over
the Pacific Ocean. They had anannouncement coming over to immediately put on your
oxygen mask, and only a thirdof them dropped. Oh wow. So
if you're on that plane, you'relike, where's mine and you start pounding
on the ceiling. It gets todrop. It was a mistake. And
yeah I was bowing as well.But it's gonna even be bowing your air

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bus. I mean, flip acoin, I mean bomb Bardier's got their
jets, so do Zimbra Air.But you know, the vast majority of
the airplanes out you get a fiftyto fifty chance almost is going to be
Boeing. Regardless of the story webring up, is that the truth that
was on Boeing flights going back andforth out west. It didn't give me
a very good feeling about it.Haven't talked to you over so many years.
Their day anyhow, and another recordbroken. I guess people are not

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concerned about getting on any kind ofairplane. They're traveling a lot. You
and I have talked so many timesover the years about the busiest day of
travel is all the Sunday after Thanksgiving, almost without exception. So it's a
matter of well, this Thanksgiving,the Sunday after Thanksgiving, you know,
break the new record. We didn'thave to wait that long because when the

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summer travel season kicked off here justafter the just prior to Memorial Day,
it was on I believe the twentytwenty fourth. On that Friday, if
that's correct, we had two pointnine million people fly. That was more
than ever that the TSA had everscreened ever ever, ever, so it
broke the record that yes, wasset on a previous Sunday after Thanksgiving.

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Well, just fast forward a coupleof weeks here and we had two point
nine nine million people fly on Sunday. So and now they're saying, Brian,
next week we're gonna go over threemillion in a day. Oh so,
and so the summer is turning outexactly what airlines knew. It was
going to be a very lucrative summertravel season. And of course this is

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this is Christmas for them, June, July and August, high demand,
high prices. But it's also thereason the CEOs for so many airlines are
so ticked. And it goes backto Boeing because Boeing was supposed to deliver
a lot more airplanes for airlines touse this summer that they could not use
Delta, United American and several othersdon't have all those silver revenue tubes they'd

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like to have to make even moremoney now, it's the cost of fuel
being up with the labor cost beingup because many of them negotiated new contracts.
They're not going to make as muchmoney this summer as what a lot
of people would imagine, given howthe operating costs are up, and the
fact that they don't have as muchall hands on deck, if you will,
as far as the planes that theythought they were going to have when

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they were loading all these schedules lastfall. And yeah, they're very,
very tick to Boeing, and forall the right reasons. At night,
thirty dollars a piece for checked bagson the flight, they're making a whole
lot of money out of that.It's it's amazing. We guys show up
with a pillowcase full of yeah,because he saw that on social media on
a Frontier flight and they're like,huh uh no, that's just that's a

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carry on we're going to charge youfor. And he took a pellicase and
the supervisor pulled him off to theside, said, look, everything you
see on social media and said sometimesit doesn't work out. So just to
understand, we kind of see thattoo on social media. So yeah,
well I just thought into, youknow, thirty bucks, thirty bucks whatever.
But you know, since I mymy airline tickets were actually quote unquote

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free because I used mileage, whichI had never used before. I've been
collecting American airline miles since I waspracticing law in Chicago. So we're going
back along a zillions. So Iused them, not all of them.
I used about half of what Ihad to buy the five airline tickets to
get out there, and so thebaggage, storage fee, the check bag,
it was more than I paid forthe tickets themselves. Anyhow, little

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keep in mind, some people,and I'm not suggesting this, Brian,
take their carry on bag to thegate so in the agents or their check
bag to the gate, knowing it'stoo big, right so that when they
say, hey it's full. Ifyou have anybody has any bags, we'll
check till you pick them up.We won't charge you, Okay, Reluctantly
you pull your great big, youknow, foot locker up there and they

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take it from you for free.So I'm not that thing to do.
That I'm saying some people do.Yeah, I'm not that kind of guy.
I'd rather just get it over withanyhow. And finally, before we
get the hub delights which will alwaysend on Jay, a mom got booted
off a flight for using the wrongpronouns. Please tell me this is not
what I perceive it to be.Well, that's the headline, and this
is a health specialist. She's flyingUnited Airlines, Brian. She's got a

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following up twenty thousand people. Iguess that makes her some influencer. But
anyway, she took to social mediablasting United Airlines because she her husband and
sixteen month old got booted off ofan airplane because, according to her side
on social media, she mistakenly usedthe wrong pronoun saying thank you sir when
the person was identified as a woman. That's the reason that headline is the

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reason this story went viral. Well, obviously we're going to dive in past
that. So I get ahold ofUnited Airlines and a lot of different people,
and look at it seems as thoughshe arrived at the gate with too
many carry on bags. Fit sowell in with our previous discussion. So
she was forced to check some ofthem, and she did not like it.
She resisted in the war of words, kicked in and led to the
captain over hearing it, going uh, oh, you're not getting on my

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flight. So of course she's ticked. She's feeling like, oh, you
know, I'm being disenfranchised here.So what I'm going to do is go
social media. And yeah, apparentlyshe did use the wrong pronoun, but
from everything I'm seeing, it didn'thave anything to do with her being kicked
off that flight. It had todo with how she was treating flight attendants
and gay agents. And I cantell you if you want to be kicked
off of a flight, you're nevergonna win an argument with a flight attendant

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or gate agent. When you starttelling them what you want them to do.
There you go, enough Joe,more money here. This is not
yet okay. I know my dayand you know they would tip the you
know, the executioner to sharpen theblade. He keeps playing that clip on
me, and I guess I gota tippy more to get rid of it.

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Oh it's all out of love,Jay, you know that is it
is. And you know if youever do my obituary, I know he's
gonna pull that out, and that'sokay, laugh at it. I don't
care. There you are, andas we do every week, and and
the segment on hub delays. How'sit looking out there for our travel today?
Jay, early morning issues Boston,Atlanta, Charlotte. But by this
afternoon it should be clear. Soif we don't get too far behind the

(15:24):
eight ball, should be a veryvery good data fly well. And I
guess plan ahead on on arriving early, most notably next week. If three
million people are going to be hittingthe air that's going to back things up
at the TSA screening area, Soplan according, keep it and keep in
mind, Brian, excuse me,that's one story you and I've not talked
about this summer. TSA anything.No pictures of lines down the down the

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hallway, out the road, downthe street. TSA is doing a great
job, and if they screw up, I talk about it. And when
they do a great job, andbelieve me, those front line people,
even with a smile, are gettingthrough. So they're doing great. But
yes, be at the airport walkingin the door or minimum of two hours
before departure. Please. I hadsome family members, nine of them try
to cut it close to the airport. They didn't make the flight. I

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told them, don't let it happen. Plan ahead. It's easy to do.
Take Jay's advice. Jay until nextThursday. Best of health you and
your better half. And I'm lookingforward to next Thursday already. Thank you.
Brian eight fifty fifty five Krsteve TalkStation. Always it's a great thing
to get your car to forn ExchangeWestchester location is the for