IHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff talks about the week in aviation

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Right time for the nine first warningweather forecast. Mostly sunny skies today,
but there's possible evening storm. It'seighty five for the high, down to
sixty six over night with a slightchance of rain. Eighty nine to high
tomorrow with a slight chance of storms. Otherwise it mostly sunny Friday overnight down
to sixty nine with a few clouds, and a sunny Saturday with no rain

(00:20):
in the forecast until Tuesday. Channelnine says Saturday is high ninety two.
Right now, it seventy one intime for Chuck with traffic from the ucl
Traffic Center. The University of CincinnatiCancer Centers opening the most comprehensive blood center
in the nation. The future ofcancer is here called five one, three,
five eighty five. Uc se Seesouthbound seventy five continues slow through Lachland

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southbound seventy one and northbound seventy one, both running a bit heavy past the
Reagan Highway northbound seventy five and anextra five between Buttermilk and Town. Chuck
Ingram on fifty five KRCA, thetalk station A twenty nine on a Friday
Eve. Regular listeners now and ifyou are not a regular listener. You're

(01:03):
a new listener. You tuning intthe right time because we get to talk
with iHeartMedia aviation expert Jay Ratliff.He is nationwide, He's on programs all
throughout this country. The entire iHeartMedianetwork of seven hundred stations has him on
right, Jay Rattliffe, Good tohave you back, my friend, and
it's my pleasure to be of servicewhen my schedule allows pleasure. Good morning
to you. I hope you're havinga great day and got some fun stuff

(01:25):
to talk about today. Let's startoff with a record being broken. You
said it was coming, and infact it did. Well. You know
the you and I talked over theyears, the single busiest travel day of
the year is always the Sunday afterThanksgiving. The second busiest travel day of
the year typically is the Wednesday beforeThanksgiving. So every year we approach November

(01:47):
wondering, okay, we're gonna breakyou know, the all time record.
Well, we kicked off the summertravel season on in May and we saw
that we had on like the twentyseventh or what twenty six where they set
a new record of two point nineI think three million people flying as we
kicked off this summer travel season that'snowhere near November, and the thought was,

(02:09):
wow, we broke a record normallyreserved for Thanksgiving at the beginning of
summer brand that record lasted thirty onedays before we broke it again at two
point nine to five, and thatrecord lasted fifteen days until we broke it
again, going over just three millionpassenger screen first time ever, over three

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million last week. So it's indicativeof the fact that more people are flying
than ever and goes to show whya lot of these CEOs for airlines are
ticked at Boeing because they were supposedto have many, many, many many
more airplanes so silver revenue tubes inservice to take advantage of this increased demand

(02:50):
for travel, and of course Boeinghas not been able to supply those airplanes.
They've had to cancel a lot ofroutes, turn their back on a
lot of needed revenue. And it'sneeded because airlines are not going to be
raking in massive profits this summer becausethey have an increase in fuel. They're
fighting and many of them have recentlyrenegotiated their contracts with some of their key
employee groups and as a result ofthing more for that. So you know,

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just because you're seeing this demand fortravel doesn't necessarily equate to oh my
gosh, the airlines stocks must begoing through the roof. They're not,
and that's the reason for it.Well, you know, and the population
has increased too. I mean,we just got to kind of remember that.
I keep waiting, for example,for a highway traffic to go back
to the way quote unquote used tobe, because every time I get on

(03:37):
the express for anymore, it seemslike it's like a rush hour, and
it could be at any gain intime. But they're a whole hell of
a lot more people living in thearea than there used to be, if
you know what I mean. We'vegot a population that's growing all the time.
So of course the roadways as wellas the airways are going to be
clogged with more people traveling. Somoving over to Boeing, I go,
boy, can't get out of thenez. They reached. The lead deal

(04:00):
is to settle what the criminal allegations. Jay, Yeah, it goes back
to the two Boeing Max crashes fiveyears ago. They killed three hundred and
forty six people, and it wasit was perhaps going to go to trial.
Boeing did not want that. Boeingbig time did not want that.
So Department of Justice step sword andsays, we're going to offer you a
plea deal. Boeing eagerly, ifI can use that term, accepted it

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quickly because it's going to force themto pay two forty three million dollars or
something, and it's going to preventthem from going to court, which would
have been more costly. I'm certainthe punitive awards would have been higher.
You're the are you kidding me?Yes? But the other thing they did
not want to have is a rehashof all the things Boeing had done to

(04:46):
intentionally lie, to cover up withholdinformation from key people like FAA, invest
in inspectors, as the airline pilots, the airlines themselves. Because that Boeing
doesn't want to have that rehash thatwas a bunch of years ago. They're
hoping it's going to kind of fade. And even though the families are very,
very disappointed here, it was expected. Look, Boeing has fourteen billion

(05:14):
dollars in defense contracts or some obscenenumber like that with the government, and
the influence Boeing has in Washington,d C is a myths and when the
thought was this is going to goto try out, like never going to
happen, even though you never wantto say never. I felt pretty confident
in that because just given Boeing's history, and you know, it's really unfortunate

(05:36):
because I used to be a hugefan of Boeing. They were the example
of safety, they were example ofengineering excellence. They were the company everybody
tried to be like. And sadly, over the last ten to fifteen years,
they've become a company that's more interestedin cutting a profit, cutting corners,
blah blah blah, as opposed todelivering the safest product the possible.

(05:57):
And as a result, we're seeingmore and more instances where their aircraft are
being required to have inspections because ofthings that they have issues with. Isn't
it an interesting jay In an effortto increase profitability, they have put themselves
in a position of ruining their profitability. They do. But you know,
in the stock has dipped just alittle bit. I think it's still one
hundred and eighty eight hundred and eightyfive somewhere in that range right now,

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and it certainly hasn't plummeted to obscenelows overall of this because people know Boeing
is huge, They've got the deeppockets, They've got more than five thousand
planes on back order. It's notlike they're going to go out of business.
And I hate to use this term, but I know it's used in
legal circles, but it's the costof doing business. And I'm sorry,

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I can never, I can,never, ever ever accept that term when
it comes to safety, because whenyou take a position that you are going
to as many of these whistleblowers fromat Boeing have indicated and the FAA has
substantiated, where Boeing has an airplanewhere they run out of parts and they
tell their employees go to the scrapbin where the parts are that we don't

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want to use, pick out thebest of those failed parts, bring them
back and put it on the airplaneso that we can keep this aircraft on
schedule. From a production standpoint,Brient, how do you respond to that?
I mean, is so deliberately insanethat it shouldn't be happening, and
yet it was a normal practice maybestill is. I don't know it Boeing

(07:24):
well, and that takes you backto the whole point on punitive damages.
If they had gone to trial,if they court a jury was allowed to
deliberate on this, they would havebeen awarded These poor people who have lost
family members, they would have beenawarded billions of dollars. And I have
a feeling that maybe this settlement sweetheartdeal was negotiated and settled without the issue
of punitive damage coming up, primarilybecause maybe the future of Boeing might have

(07:46):
been at stake had it actually goneto trial and a jury awarded punitive damages,
and it would have gone to appeal, and it probably would have spent
a decade trying to get things squaredaway, and maybe they would have reached
a further plea deal after that.We don't know, But the bottom line
is that it's really a shame thata company that endangered the lives of people
knew that they had an aircraft thatwas had safety issues that they said,

(08:09):
we will fix these in future editionsof this aircraft. It just it just
is so insane when you look atthe decisions that were being made by people
that should have been looking out forthe safety of everybody that flies. But
you know, complacency being what itis, Brian, so often, if

(08:30):
nothing's happened and we took shortcuts,well maybe we can keep doing it.
We'll continue with our media aviation expertJay rat Loft more on Boing plus scary
near miss and other stories. Ina moment, let me just mention chimneycare,
fireplace in stoves since a area's favoritechimney fireplace and dryer event professionals,
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(08:50):
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(09:11):
know about. They can fix that. They can relign your chimney, they
can do tuck pointing, they cando the chimney sweeping, literally everything.
Plus it's a great time to getthat new chimney, fireplace insert or a
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temperatures get cold, so it's comfortand safety. And remember the dryer event

(09:33):
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two four eight ninety six hundred onlineChimneycareco dot Com fifty five earning twenty five
dollars. Now wouldn't be an iHeartMediaAviation Expert without that sound bite dar at
love. It goes beyond the Boeingseven thirty seven max crashes and doors flying
off and tires exploding. We nowalso have the FA ordering oxygen mask inspections.

(10:20):
What else could go wrong? Yeah, what they're saying is the oxygen
mask on some of the seven thirtysevens may not deploy as they're supposed to
during an emergency. Okay, Sothe FAA has ordered the inspection of twenty
six hundred seven thirty sevens to makesure that those oxygen canisters there's a strap

(10:41):
up there that's giving them some problems, that they work as they're supposed to.
And of course, we had aUnited Airlines flight that was coming across
the pond there over the Atlantic thathad an emergency announcement that came over saying
don your oxygen mask immediately, andonly a third of them dropped from the
ceiling. Everybody else is banging onthe ceiling trying to get theirs to drop.

(11:03):
It was a mistake at the time, but the panic certainly was you
know, was warranted given everything thatwas going on. But Bryn, this
is one of the reasons that Iget emails from people around the country saying,
Jay, for the first time ever, I'm actually paying attention to what
kind of airplane I'm on, andI'm looking for itineraries that say air Bus
versus Boeing. And this has beenthe case for the last seven months.

(11:26):
That was me when I got onthe airplane going to Jackson the hole man.
It's like, God, bless it, I'm on a Boeing aircraft.
It did not give any Yeah,at least you're not stuck in a space
station with a Boeing ticker on yourspacecraft, right, true, you knew
you were tempting fate with that one. Brother. I feel that is just

(11:48):
the strangest reality. I mean that, you know, that's something I don't
even want to have to contemplate myworld. But it was bad enough getting
a Boeing airplane. So uh,time after time, you're always bringing this
up, and it did not giveme comfort. So I'm sure that I'm
not the only one that's got tofeel that way. You just mention it
yourself. People are looking for alternativesto the Boeing aircraft. I'm uncomfortable on
a seven thirty seven Max. That'sthe only aircraft that I am uncomfortable with.

(12:11):
And if I can stay clear ofit, I'll do it. Now.
Will I change my itinerary completely?If it's the same day travel,
I'll change it. And I liketo catch the first flight out in the
morning now. Fortunately, Delta ismy carrier of choice. They do not
yet have any seven thirty seven Maxaircraft, so I can book those without
really being worried about the aircraft thatJay just me personally he is not comfortable

(12:35):
with right at this point in time. So that's just my personal preference now,
while I get on any other Boeingaircraft absolutely without hesitation. My parents,
my grandkids, my wife, noproblem with that. But yeah,
I expect Boeing to do a betterjob, and sadly they simply not been
doing it. And even though they'regiving us a lot of these promises that
they gave us five years ago,which they lied, then they may be

(12:56):
lying now, it's gonna be yearsbefore really going to know if they were
serious about trying to turn the cornerhere. Yeah, it sure is.
And that's just a sad reality realquick here, I saw that we haven't
we've talked about this before. Wehave yet another mechanic getting sucked into and
this is a Boeing engine, certainlynot Boeing's fault, but you guys kind

(13:16):
of have to wonder how in thehell that could possibly happen. I mean,
doesn't isn't everyone on the tarmac trainto stay the hell away from a
jet engine when it's running. Yeah, But what happens is complacency where you
get used to it and you're aroundthem, and initially you're scared to death.
Then you become a little bit morecomfortable, and then you get to

(13:37):
the point where you are running therisk of putting yourself in harm's way.
And this was a mechanic. Itwas and Iran that was working on a
commercial jetliner and they were doing aright engine test where they were testing the
covers. You forgot a tool,went back to get it, got too
close to the engine and was killed. And when I used to see my

(13:58):
agents running on the ramp, thatwas the only time I'd pull them off
to the side and say, I'mabout to fire you because you run faster
than you think and I'd rather haveyou spend the rest of your life mad
at me than us having a situationwhere you're killed out here on the ramp.
The ram's a very dangerous place,and that's why you have to be
very, very aware. But sadlythere are times when people forget that,

(14:20):
and sadly they put themselves inadvertently inharm's way. Yes, they do all
right. Moving over, speaking ofharm's way, apparently there was a scary
near miss that of course on securitycamera. Literally everything these days is Syracuse.
For this one, Jay, Yeah, it was sent to me by
the Syracuse station I work with.They said, Jay, check this out,
and I'm thinking, okay, it'sprobably going to be a near miss

(14:41):
kind of thing, and knowing everythingwas going to be okay, watching this
video it took my breath away.Really. Now I understood the angle of
it. I thought, well,okay, maybe the way the camera it
was a security footage that showed oneairplane land I think one airplane taken off
in Brian. I'm telling you.You look at it and you think they're
about to occupy the same spot atthe exact same time. And I thought,

(15:01):
okay, maybe it's just a cameraangle. Maybe it's not this close.
Then we listened to the air trafficcontrol tapes between air traffic Control and
one of the departing Delta connection carriers, and the pilots were not happy.
So it made me say, okay, something's going on here. Once this
went viral, the FAA stepped inand said, hey, they're going to
investigate this, but if you've hadthe chance to check out that Syracuse airport

(15:24):
near miss You need to because it'sone thing for you and I to talk
about. Hey, we had anair miss at Kennedy and air miss in
Austin, blah blah blah, moreof them now than we've had of late.
But to see something like it onvideo is on real and hopefully this
will ratchet up the discussions because look, the FAA is still investigating other near

(15:46):
misses this year, so you know, that's a video you've got to check
out. And this was one wherethey had cleared an American flight, or
rather they cleared a Delta flight totake off while an American flight was getting
y the land. Is one ofthose circumstances. Yeah, now that takes
me and you look at that videoand again you know everything's going to be

(16:06):
okay, you know the outcome,but it still took my breath away because
that was a very very apparent closecall. We'll see just how close it
was as the investigation continues from theFAA. Yeah, no doubt about It
just reminds me of a story Iflew out to it. It was a
tiny little airport. It was acommercial flight, but there was no tower.

(16:26):
The planes would to a circle aroundthe runway, to see if it
was clear, and then they wouldtake a running in land. Well,
my plane was coming into land andanother plane gets on the runway to take
off, so they had to pullout and do another loop. So not
as close nearly or anywhere near theone that you're talking about, but it
was it was just a strange occurrence. I remember like it was yesterday because
it scared me a little bit.Adie hub delays we always had on hub

(16:48):
delace. Let's do that again.Today best day of the week to travel
bar none. Because we had issueswith hurricanes earlier this year a week rather
and we had problems as that stormsystem moved up through it's all gone,
so today looks to be from aat least from a weather station, almost
a delay free standpoint. Now we'llstill have other issues obviously, and but

(17:11):
they needed today because they're still tryingto accommodate some of those people that were
stranded over the last couple of days. Yeah, so if you picked today,
you picked a good one. Justget to the airport, walking in
the doors at least two hours beforedeparture, do your job so that you
can make sure you get on thatflight, because yes, they are going
to be packed. Oh, theyare going to be packed, okay,
because I was getting ready to say, well, coming off that record weekend,

(17:33):
maybe the holiday traffic's all over thatyou'll have fewer people standing around trying
to get out. If I getthe seat, you probably get the road
to yourself. Just playing on it. Don't sew up early. Not say
that, because that's all somebody's goingto hear that, and Joe's got that
on tape. I'm glad you saidit on me. You'll replay that every
week. Don't show up early day. It's always a pleasure having on the

(17:56):
show, my friend. I'll lookforward to next Thursday. Already between now
and then, best the health youin your better half and have a wonderful
weekend, sir, you do,my friends. Thanks to Eddy forty nine
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this morning with my guest doctor KellyMcClain on the charity for women who have
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