Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Typically when we chat with our brilliant aviation analyst, Jay Ratlift,
there's been some calamity, but thank god, nobody's dead in
this case. But this deal over at the Newark Airport,
one of the busiest around New York City the other day,
it's close enough. Air traffic control lost contact for about
thirty seconds. Don Jay joins us for a few minutes, Jay,
(00:22):
good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Good morning, And yeah, I'm sure it seemed like much
much longer than that when you're talking about people that
are tracking the movement of a lot of different airplanes
around the sky.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
So what do they do? They had audio contact or not?
I know they didn't have visual Do they have audio
contact with the aircraft's I.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Am told yes, But I've seen conflicting reports on that.
What we do know is the technology let us down.
And of course, when it comes to the technology within
the Federal Aviation Administration, we recognize we're not talking about
state of the art equipment here. We're talking about equipment
that could be upgraded and should have been perhaps long
(01:04):
long ago, And of course now that's going to be
something that's now a matter of priority in this location.
But the issue is it's going to take a considerable
amount of time for them to be able to do so.
And when you're talking about the shortage of air traffic controllers,
the technical difficulties that we've been having, you're talking about
(01:26):
not being able to accommodate United Airlines basically their hub
in Newark. So the executives that United have decided and
announced by Scott Kirby, their CEO, that they're going to
cut back by ten percent the number of flights in
and out of that airport because they're having a difficult
time now during one of the slowest travel months of
(01:47):
the year. By the way, May and September are always
the slowest, And I mean, I don't know what's going
to happen once we hit the busy summer travel months
of June, July, and August.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Why does it take so long? We've been talking about this, Jay,
You've lamented this for a while. When the new administration
came in, Sean Duffy said, yeah, we got to fix
what takes so long upgrade equipment.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, I mean, when you're talking about from the it's
a lot like when you're going to build a runway.
You have to have the pre work done to make
sure that it's going to be the proper runway, proper link,
all the environmental stuff that has to come into play. Now,
obviously technology that's not so much the issue, but there's
a lot of pre work, and then there's the work itself,
(02:27):
and then there's the implementation, and then there's the training.
So it's incredibly involved. And this is something in newer
that could take us a number of years to get fixed.
And Yeah, for the last thirty three years, I've been
going nuts because we've been tracking airplanes using ground based radar,
which is, you know, we can track the drug dealer
(02:48):
on the corner of Fifth and Main using a cell phone,
but a two hundred million dollars aircraft lying around with
all those passengers, Yeah, we can lose sight of it
if it's out of line of sight of that ground
based radar. Now we're at he's acting more of a
satellite approach, thankfully, moving in that direction slowly. But the technology,
the FAA tends to get whatever money falls off the table.
(03:09):
It just never seems to be a priority because far
too often they find a way to make it work.
It works.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I would think as often as congress people fly,
they'd make it a priority, you know, but oh, that's
just me.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
The DC Airport is a priority. Flights going in out
of there to get at home are a priority. If
it affects them, it's a priority for the rest of
the country, sometimes not so much.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
When Duffy came in, he also talked about, as did
the President, of making the air traffic control personnel issue
no longer subject to anything approaching THEEI was going to
be strictly merit based, and they were going to increase
the pay. Where are we on that.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Well, last year the FA had a hiring goal of
fifteen hundred people. They were able to knock that out
by September first. This year we're looking at try to
get two thousand. I think what the present shooting for.
And the issue though is many of those individuals do
not make it through the training, and then those that do,
it's years before we can get them into place as
(04:10):
far as fully trained and able to man their station.
So the DEI stuff kind of out of the way.
The focus is on let's find the best and most
qualified people. It used to be to apply air traffic controller.
You're talking about the college degree and there are other
entry type things that were in place. Well, they got
rid of all that so that we could become more inclusive.
(04:31):
The problem is that did affect the overall level of competence,
if you will, the only word I can use. And
we're getting away from that. We're just simply saying, look,
we want the best men and women for these positions,
and we need to hire them as quickly as possible.
The problem is it's like a faucet that you turn on,
you have to wait for the water to get to
the other end. We can do a lot now, but
(04:52):
it's going to be two three years before we're going
to get to the point where we're going to be,
shall we say, caught up from the three thousand air
traffic control right now that we're short.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Scott, didn't you say you heard? Was it the manager
of the Newark Airport or who was it? Said it's
not safe to play. It was one of the guys
with their traffic control out of maybe like a labor
leader of some sort, and he said it was a union.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It was a union leader said it wasn't safe. I
can't use that word. I could say it's less safe
than it should be, but I would not say it's unsafe.
But Look, if I'm playing United Airlines, I recognize they've
got headaches in Newark. So when I make my reservation,
i'm personally me. This is me. I'm going through Chicago,
I'll go through Houston. I'll go through another United hub
(05:36):
to get to my destination. The idea of routing myself
purposely through an airport that sometimes could see two and
three four hour delay, I mean, the minute I did that,
my wife would look at me and say, Jay, yeah,
I'm order to put us through the air Yeah. So
I'm not going to do that, So I'm going to
go to another airline or another hub. Jay, Why do
you think he said that?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Then? Is it trying to angle for a better union
deal and scare the way.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's always posturing. And but look, there's also frustration because
if I'm ahead of that union, I recognize the people
that I represent have been working with antiquated equipment under
some very trying circumstances. There's never really been an emphasis
a priority on trying to get caught up. So the
people that work with me are now working over time,
(06:22):
they're exhausted, are a lot more pressure, and all of
those things. So yeah, I understand why somebody would want
to try to, you know, pull that lever so that
we could try to get more of emphasis. But look,
I recognize that the aviation industry is an integral part
of the nation's economy. We've got to do everything that
we can to keep it moving, so it deserves every
(06:43):
bit of attention and money it can get to make
sure that we're not only getting by, but we could
actually excel at it and maybe lead lead the world.
Right now, we don't from the technology standpoint of things,
and we've got a lot of catch up to do
because for decades and for more presidents that I can count,
it's never been a priority until now.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Wow, great info, Jay, and we happen to have a
little audio from that episode the other day over at
Sorry I couldn't help it, Jay Rat left
Typically when we chat with our brilliant aviation analyst, Jay Ratlift,
there's been some calamity, but thank god, nobody's dead in
this case. But this deal over at the Newark Airport,
one of the busiest around New York City the other day,
it's close enough. Air traffic control lost contact for about
thirty seconds. Don Jay joins us for a few minutes, Jay,
(00:22):
good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Good morning, And yeah, I'm sure it seemed like much
much longer than that when you're talking about people that
are tracking the movement of a lot of different airplanes
around the sky.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
So what do they do? They had audio contact or not?
I know they didn't have visual Do they have audio
contact with the aircraft's I.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Am told yes, But I've seen conflicting reports on that.
What we do know is the technology let us down.
And of course, when it comes to the technology within
the Federal Aviation Administration, we recognize we're not talking about
state of the art equipment here. We're talking about equipment
that could be upgraded and should have been perhaps long
(01:04):
long ago, And of course now that's going to be
something that's now a matter of priority in this location.
But the issue is it's going to take a considerable
amount of time for them to be able to do so.
And when you're talking about the shortage of air traffic controllers,
the technical difficulties that we've been having, you're talking about
(01:26):
not being able to accommodate United Airlines basically their hub
in Newark. So the executives that United have decided and
announced by Scott Kirby, their CEO, that they're going to
cut back by ten percent the number of flights in
and out of that airport because they're having a difficult
time now during one of the slowest travel months of
(01:47):
the year. By the way, May and September are always
the slowest, And I mean, I don't know what's going
to happen once we hit the busy summer travel months
of June, July, and August.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Why does it take so long? We've been talking about this, Jay,
You've lamented this for a while. When the new administration
came in, Sean Duffy said, yeah, we got to fix
what takes so long upgrade equipment.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, I mean, when you're talking about from the it's
a lot like when you're going to build a runway.
You have to have the pre work done to make
sure that it's going to be the proper runway, proper link,
all the environmental stuff that has to come into play. Now,
obviously technology that's not so much the issue, but there's
a lot of pre work, and then there's the work itself,
(02:27):
and then there's the implementation, and then there's the training.
So it's incredibly involved. And this is something in newer
that could take us a number of years to get fixed.
And Yeah, for the last thirty three years, I've been
going nuts because we've been tracking airplanes using ground based radar,
which is, you know, we can track the drug dealer
(02:48):
on the corner of Fifth and Main using a cell phone,
but a two hundred million dollars aircraft lying around with
all those passengers, Yeah, we can lose sight of it
if it's out of line of sight of that ground
based radar. Now we're at he's acting more of a
satellite approach, thankfully, moving in that direction slowly. But the technology,
the FAA tends to get whatever money falls off the table.
(03:09):
It just never seems to be a priority because far
too often they find a way to make it work.
It works.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I would think as often as congress people fly,
they'd make it a priority, you know, but oh, that's
just me.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
The DC Airport is a priority. Flights going in out
of there to get at home are a priority. If
it affects them, it's a priority for the rest of
the country, sometimes not so much.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
When Duffy came in, he also talked about, as did
the President, of making the air traffic control personnel issue
no longer subject to anything approaching THEEI was going to
be strictly merit based, and they were going to increase
the pay. Where are we on that.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Well, last year the FA had a hiring goal of
fifteen hundred people. They were able to knock that out
by September first. This year we're looking at try to
get two thousand. I think what the present shooting for.
And the issue though is many of those individuals do
not make it through the training, and then those that do,
it's years before we can get them into place as
(04:10):
far as fully trained and able to man their station.
So the DEI stuff kind of out of the way.
The focus is on let's find the best and most
qualified people. It used to be to apply air traffic controller.
You're talking about the college degree and there are other
entry type things that were in place. Well, they got
rid of all that so that we could become more inclusive.
(04:31):
The problem is that did affect the overall level of competence,
if you will, the only word I can use. And
we're getting away from that. We're just simply saying, look,
we want the best men and women for these positions,
and we need to hire them as quickly as possible.
The problem is it's like a faucet that you turn on,
you have to wait for the water to get to
the other end. We can do a lot now, but
(04:52):
it's going to be two three years before we're going
to get to the point where we're going to be,
shall we say, caught up from the three thousand air
traffic control right now that we're short.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Scott, didn't you say you heard? Was it the manager
of the Newark Airport or who was it? Said it's
not safe to play. It was one of the guys
with their traffic control out of maybe like a labor
leader of some sort, and he said it was a union.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It was a union leader said it wasn't safe. I
can't use that word. I could say it's less safe
than it should be, but I would not say it's unsafe.
But Look, if I'm playing United Airlines, I recognize they've
got headaches in Newark. So when I make my reservation,
i'm personally me. This is me. I'm going through Chicago,
I'll go through Houston. I'll go through another United hub
(05:36):
to get to my destination. The idea of routing myself
purposely through an airport that sometimes could see two and
three four hour delay, I mean, the minute I did that,
my wife would look at me and say, Jay, yeah,
I'm order to put us through the air Yeah. So
I'm not going to do that, So I'm going to
go to another airline or another hub. Jay, Why do
you think he said that?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Then? Is it trying to angle for a better union
deal and scare the way.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's always posturing. And but look, there's also frustration because
if I'm ahead of that union, I recognize the people
that I represent have been working with antiquated equipment under
some very trying circumstances. There's never really been an emphasis
a priority on trying to get caught up. So the
people that work with me are now working over time,
(06:22):
they're exhausted, are a lot more pressure, and all of
those things. So yeah, I understand why somebody would want
to try to, you know, pull that lever so that
we could try to get more of emphasis. But look,
I recognize that the aviation industry is an integral part
of the nation's economy. We've got to do everything that
we can to keep it moving, so it deserves every
(06:43):
bit of attention and money it can get to make
sure that we're not only getting by, but we could
actually excel at it and maybe lead lead the world.
Right now, we don't from the technology standpoint of things,
and we've got a lot of catch up to do
because for decades and for more presidents that I can count,
it's never been a priority until now.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Wow, great info, Jay, and we happen to have a
little audio from that episode the other day over at
Sorry I couldn't help it, Jay Rat left
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.