IHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I Heeart Media Aviation ext for Jay Ratler for joining

(00:02):
the program every Thursday at this time to talk aviation issues.
Welcome back, my friend, A real pleasure, may.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Pleasant good morning to you, and an early Merry Christmas
to you, my friend.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yeah, right back at you. This will be our last
discussion before the end of the year, since I'm off
after the twenty third until the fifth, so we'll hit
the ground running in January, and I'm certainly looking forward
to that. Already perfect timing. Issue number one now, the
United States admitted liability in the January Army helicopter crash
that killed sixty seven people. Helicopter flying right in front

(00:34):
of a runway and a plane ran into it. Bad
Absolutely as I understand the way this happened. So the
plane or the helicopter flying in this crowded airspace was
not using the Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast technology called ADSB,
which transmits the location of the aircraft. The system wasn't

(00:54):
on because they had a waiver exempting those military helicopters
from broadcasting where they were. After that, the FAA required
all aircraft in that airspace to use the ADSB technology.
Yesterday they passed the nine hundred and one billion dollar
National Defense Authorization Act, which removed that obligation.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Unreal, unreal, It is mind boggling. In fact, it was
so egregious that the chair of the National Transportation Safety
Board actually and something that's never really happened before, was
commenting on that bill as it was moving towards approval,
saying that to take a step back is ridiculous and rare,

(01:36):
is it. Do you have anyone connected with the NTSB
that's active that will come out and make that kind
of a comment. But that was exactly the case, and
why we are okay and taking a step back still
confuses me. I don't have anyone yet that's been able
to say why that's an okay thing to do. And
it's another indication of many brian where it's real easy

(01:58):
to say safety is are number one priority. Yeah, blah
blah blah, prove it. And when you do things like this,
it's just you scratch your head thinking these are supposed
to be intelligent people. We're trying to honor the lives
of the sixty seven people that were lost in January.
Why are we not making things safer? Instead of saying, well,

(02:18):
that was bad but you know, we're going to make
things actually worse than they were. And you know, one
of the things that investigation really bore out in January
as we move forward was just how many other near
misissues and things that we'd had in that airspace over
the years, and the fact that you had so many
of these helicopters and other military aircraft that were actively

(02:39):
crossing the arrival departure runways of so many different aircraft,
and we had several times where crews had to divert
their landing and go around and come back to another runway.
It was such a common occurrence. It was pretty much
a red flag that said this is an issue and
we are in essence on borrowed time here before something

(03:02):
horrific happens. And the situation in January, there was just
a whole number of events that contributed to it that
you sadly again cost sixty seven lives and we don't
make things safer. Shame on us.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, really, And you one of the weird facts about
this and reading the reporting on it, apparently members of Congress,
House and Senate use those helicopters to get to the
airport real quick when they want to go home for
Christmas time soccer, and so I know that, and see
that's the first reaction like, oh, they just want to
make this so easy for themselves, but that just puts

(03:35):
their lives in more jeopardy because if they're the ones
that are using these helicopters more frequently, and I assume
they are than anybody else on the planet with the
exception of the military personnel flying them, they just put
themselves in greater risks of getting knocked out of the
air by an airplane.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Absolutely, And it's again just another one of those situations
that just it baffles logic and common sense when you're
talking about it. But then we're back to managing the
perception of secure more than we are actually security itself.
And it's happened too many times, and I've seen it
happen more times than I can count over the last
four decades, and it's just it's frustrating. I mean, I've

(04:12):
walked out of meetings with the Federal Aviation Administration over
just that. You know, we're having a meeting for the
sake of a meeting, talking about things we talked about
a year ago. There's nothing getting done. So this is
a waste of time, goodbye, and because it just it
just I don't know. And when you talk about the
number of people that are behind creating a bill, passing

(04:32):
a bill, saying that the bill is okay, it makes
me want to point a finger at every single person involved.
We're not one single person that I'm aware of raised
their hand prior to the National Transportation Safety Board chief
chair and say wait a minute, this is this is wrong.
We've got to address this now. And I'm hoping that
something can be done. Where as the outrage obviously grows

(04:56):
that the Washington d C. We have individuals that are
actually going.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
To fix unbelievable Well. I don't wish ill will on anybody,
but maybe if a member of Congress or maybe one
of our senators is on one of those helicopters and
they are involved in the mid air collision, but perhaps
they'll change their mind. Jay rattlift, I didn't know. I
didn't know. There are parking tickets for parking and airplane
if you forget about it, that and more, we got

(05:21):
a bunch of topics to try to run through with. Jay,
Just stick around me right back fifty five KRC.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
No One celebrates that.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
The cockpit before it. Jay Rye Left has a thirty
nine If you have KCD Talks edition, Jay real quick
here Mark's point. He says, what about covert operations? If
you got this ADSB hardware going alerting the people to
where the the helicopters flying, Well, my responsible was, well, fine,
COVID operations may be a reason not to want to
use that, But that means that the covert operation may

(05:50):
not be completed because they got blown up during a
plane collision with a plane. The best path that the
best path that success may not involve the most direct
flight path was my follow up point, right.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
And of course you want to make it the training
you play as your practice, and practice as you play,
so you're going to do everything you can to try
to make it as it would be during an actual exercise,
if it was for real. The problem is when you're
conducting that in amid a crowded airspace with a lot
of commercial flight activity, you are increasing the risk. Yeah,

(06:24):
and you know that to me is what's either acceptable
or unacceptable. And I'm always going to air on the
side of caution and say, if safety is the number
one priority, you know there needs to be some adjustments
to prevent a disaster from taking place, and we've had one,
so we've obviously seen the results. We've got to pivot
from that direction, or it's going to happen again.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Ah Air India one hundred and twenty thousand dollars parking tab.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Well, yeah, yeah, it's that. For some reason, Air India
needed to park one of their seven thirty sevens at
another airport at Kolkata and it's airport in India and
it's you know, perhaps they had maintenance scheduled for the
aircraft and it was parked on a remote part of
the of the airport grounds there. But shortly thereafter Air

(07:13):
India had changes in their staffing and management team and
apparently somebody forgot it was there. Okay, So eventually the
airport contacts Air India think, you know, how much longer
is this airplane of year is going to be here?
And initially Air India said that's not ours, and of
course yeah, they got in essence the ven number if

(07:33):
you will, and said, hey, do you not still own
this and they said, oh gosh, yeah we do. And
they said that's fine because the parking is so much
and since it's been here since twenty and twelve, the
fee is going to be one hundred and twenty thousand
dollars in air India paid it and they're removing the
aircraft by ground. They're going to make it part of
their training facility as far as that type of aircraft

(07:57):
because it's no longer fit to fly because the work
that has to be done to it. But you know,
you go through airport parking lot and we encountered this
a lot at the airports that I was connected with,
and you would have cars that would be parked in
the parking lot for years, in long term, even short term,
and in some instances, you know, you'd have to have

(08:18):
the cars removed toad try to contact the owner. Sometimes
it was an individual passed away, individuals.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Were running away, malfunctioning autokay, or.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
It would have been somebody that was involved in you know,
some sort of legal illegal operation, or it was just
a stolen car. But yeah, it's amazing when you have
that type of thing where you've got a large number
of these, but you know, one car kind of blends
in with the rest of them in the carking lot.
One aircraft kind of sitting there day after day after day,
week after week, month after month, and yes, year after year.

(08:51):
I love it. Kind of stand out, I would think, so.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
I would think, but you know, Air India not even
losing track of a multi million dollar aircraft and denying
it even owned it, that seems rather peculiar to me.
But then again, I don't run airlines, so.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Well, it's easier to say it's not ours than to
admit craft we forgot about it for thirteen years. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
True, rumors still swirling about Spirit Airlines being on the
brink of collapse. What happened to that Frontier thing?

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Well last year, well, you know, Frontier and Spirit we're
going to merge years ago, and jet Blue came in
kind of pushed him out of the way and we
had all that go through where eventually then the Spirit
jet Blue merger didn't come through. And this last weekend
you had individuals saying that Spirit Airlines was on the
brink of shutting down. They weren't even going to get
through last weekend. Spirit executives quickly commit and said, look,

(09:40):
we've got some cash to keep us moving. They're in
the Chapter eleven bankruptcy process, the second time they filed
in less than a year. And obviously there's concerns, certainly
for passengers that are coming up on vacations over the
next two and a half weeks. But right now we're
also hearing that there's a kind of rekindled conversations that
have started to in between Frontier and Spirit about a

(10:01):
possible merger. Now I'm glad this is going to happen.
You and I've talked about it before. How I really
liked that initial merger between the two low cost carriers
of Spirit and Frontier because their route maps compliment each
other so well. When you overlapped them, there was very
few cities that were overlapped, meaning those two airlines you

(10:22):
would have a less reduction of service into airports, a
fewer jobs cut, not the case with Jet Blue and Frontier.
That or Spirit that had so many overlapping markets, which
is one of the reasons it was not allowed to
move forward. So low cost carriers, Brian, you and I
have talked about so many times before keep the average
low fare down, so we love low cost carriers. I

(10:45):
certainly want to make sure Spirit continues flying, and I
would love to see the merger with Frontier because I
think that would make them a much stronger carrier. It
would keep them around and it would have more low
cost carrier seats in the marketplace, which is obviously what
we want to see happen.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
And then and real quick, because we have quite a
few topics to get to, we won't get to all
of them real quick since it evolves. Jet Blue dodged
a mid air collision with the US military refueling tanker.
Briefing on that.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, coming out of Caroseo, the Caribbean Airline near Venezuela.
They're climbing and all of a sudden there's a US
Air Force aircraft five thousand feet in front of them,
same flight path, and they didn't know it was there.
If they had to take evasive action. It was classified
as possible a mid air situation. From a collision standpoint,
we had five thousand feet separation. Bottom line was that

(11:34):
there was a minimum There was no there's a breakdown
communication from the Air Force to the Federal Aviation Administration.
They couldn't notify the crews because they weren't aware of
it was there at the time, and you know, luckily
they didn't get super close. Jet Blue crew did what
they were trained to do, and we can learn from this,
so hopefully things can be made safer as we move forward.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, kind of like we were supposed to learn from
the helicopter plane collision. We just got done talking about.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
That, but pilots have also been notified in that area.
If you're flying anywhere around Venezuela a lot of activity,
be on guard because there are military aircraft from all
different kinds that are flying and you may not be
aware of the fact that they're there until you see them.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Great point. More with iHeart mediaviation Expert Jay Rat left
right after these brief words. Fifty five KRC fifty.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Five KRC they talk station.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
A forty eight if you have KRCD talk station. Very
very happy Friday or Friday Eve to you, love Heaven.
I heard mediaviation Expert Jay let Rat left on the
program program every Friday Eve. And of course you're going
to indulge me here for just a moment. It is
the Christmas season. You already risk me. Merry Christmas. I
wish you merry Christmas. I hope you enjoy the holiday
spirit and just have a just a really heartwarming message

(12:45):
to pass along. Brian Ibold from the Help Squad. Jay.
If you're not familiar. They help out westsiders and need
Christian Faith Collaborative. You give the money, You give money
to them, and they make sure the right people get it.
Every dollar you give to the Help Squad is a
dollar in benefits to someone truly in need. Brian Ibold
form Sinceni police officer started the whole thing. He was
on the program not that long ago. He got a

(13:05):
text from him this morning. I received this letter along
with one thousand dollars a check for one thousand dollars
because this woman, her name is Shannon, was on my program.
He said thank you for the continued support. So that
really warmed my heart. In a shout out to Shannon
who or it's either Shannon or Sharon. It's cursive and
it's I can't read the writing very well, but she
did say she heard about the Help Squad on my program.

(13:28):
She was thanking him for helping people who otherwise would
not get any help. And the thousand dollars contribution. So
thank you Brian for passing along the information and to
that listener who made the contribution. That kind of thing
just warms my heart. Jay, It's just such a wonderful
position to be in where I can spread the information
about these great charities out there and how people can
get in touch with them and help out. It's just great.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Is that link on your website or.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
It's the help Squad? Sincey withthewy dot com it's been
up many times over the year. It is not currently
there because this I just literally got the message from Brian.
We were on the brain.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
I will add to that.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Well, you know, the nice thing, Brian is that it's
this time of year where, you know, there's a lot
of crazy things going on with all the activities that
were over committed to do, but it's also a time
that a lot of us just kind of take stock
in the fact of just how blessed we are. And
sometimes it's this or that doing things. And I remember
when I met Sherry nineteen years ago. We were dating,

(14:26):
and one of the things she was doing with her
young young sons at the time was when they would
get a Christmas present a toy, they would take an
old toy and donate it to someone else. That way,
when they got something, they were giving something, And it
was just kind of a type of thing she was
trying to ingrain into them about being thankful for what
you have and then taking sometimes even a toy you like,

(14:47):
and let's donate it to somebody that may not have one.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
There you go, and there's.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Just so many people, especially in this audience, because I
hear from so many people that had that mindset and
they appreciate what they have, and look, life's temporary, so
let's let's make them most of it. Be thankful. And
and you know this idea of just not not trying
to help your fellow man, you know, fortunately for a
lot of us, that's that's a foreign concept. We're gonna

(15:11):
do what we can to help. And I'm glad that
you mentioned that that worthwhile organization.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
The help Squad since you with a why the help
squadsincy dot com. They are terrific of what they do
and focusing on an area that they found was desperately
in need for help. So salute all the help Squad folks.
And Brian Ibel, thanks again for that latest survey ranking
the most reliable and least reliable airports and airlines. Is
CVG on that list there anywhere?

Speaker 2 (15:35):
No, No, no, no, it's not. But you know, one
of the things that they looked at was the on
time performance when they looked at you know how different
airports do things as far as you know which ones
are the best or not. And when we're coming into
the airport the travel season with the holidays, one of
the things that people ask all the time is Jay,

(15:57):
what's the best airports to go through? And when you
look look get you know idea as far as Orlando
being one of the airports it has one of the
better on time performances. That that's a key one to
go through a Delta airlines having the best on time
performance as far as their on time performance is also
something people look at when they're planning their trip, and

(16:18):
that's important for a lot of people as they are
traveling or planning their upcoming trip, is which airline airport
can I count on that I can give me the
best chance of being on time. And that's that's one
of the reasons that these rankings come out all the time.
When you're looking at you know which airports to avoid,
which ones to not, And that's why Delta is normally

(16:39):
a number one key and you know, even Detroit came
in in the top of that list as well, which
was kind of surprising to me from a hub standpoint,
and then you know, they had other airports that were
considered the worst. I thought airports like Philadelphia Newark would
be on the don't go there because it's not going
to be on it, but they were not. So yeah,
it's but again, I'm always ask which airline is my

(17:01):
airline of choice, and Delta is mine not only from
the on time performance, but their completion factor is higher
than others, and that's why when you're traveling through the holidays,
it's you know, I like having that because even if
the flight's a little bit delayed, I know that they're
going to get the aircraft to its destination more often
than not, and certainly more than others because their completion

(17:22):
factor is normally in the high eighty percent range, and
that's great when you're traveling, especially over the holidays.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
I tend to agree with this statement because I've been
through a lot of meetings at work Jay when I
used to work as an in house attorney at Anthem,
and of course a lot of meetings in my prior
day practicing law. Not as many though the weekly meeting
my wife gets. A weekly meeting gets two hours long.
She uses that time to do her nails. Paul out
I'm sorry I had to say that out loud, but
not a whole lot of activity on the call that's

(17:50):
really truly important to her area of work nonetheless has
an obligation to attend them. So what did Southwest Airline
CEO mean when he said to his team meetings are
not work.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Well, a lot of people were saying, I'm busy, I'm
feeling good about what I'm doing because my schedule's full
doing these types of things. And Bob Jordan, the head
the CEO of Southwest said, wait a minute, meetings aren't
leadership meetings. Aren't us doing our work. We need to
be out there doing our job, not sitting around having

(18:23):
a bunch of especially one on one meetings. He said,
that's a waste of time. And he's trying to change
the focus of Southwest Airlines where you're trying to make
sure that every single individual is doing the most that
they can each and every day to try to help
that airline advance, especially on the customer service side of things.
And he found that a lot of people in his
leadership team were busy in meetings instead of doing other

(18:45):
things that were far more practical. And I remember the
last supervisor I had at Northwest Airlines. He demanded a
two hour conference call every Monday morning, excuse me, the
busiest day of the week, so we could tell him
what was going on. And it was nuts. So you know,
some people are so meeting, you know, yes, sess. And

(19:07):
I heard somebody, somebody used to work for me, come
in and on my Facebook posts. He said, Jade. People that
have those like to hear themselves talk. And I think
that's probably the case, and it's the perception of being productive.
That's what meetings are. Many times you don't need to
have them. And I told you about the FA meeting
I walked out of in the last segment. We were
talking about the same topics that we were a year before,

(19:28):
and I walked out. I said, folks, no disrespect, but
these are the same talking points we had a year ago.
We've not done anything and it's a waste of my
time and yours, and I let My boss wasn't too
happy when he found out about it. But you know
the bottom line is the idea of just having a
meeting for meeting's sake, No, And it's kind of a
corporate mindset where some of this is changing. You're seeing
that the corporations adopt the same thing, and I think

(19:49):
that's a great thing.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
To do, and minds me of a conference call was
on with attorneys from all over the fifty states, including Hawaii,
on a tobacco litigation call, same thing, rehashing that had
been over and over and over and over again. I
didn't realize my mute button wasn't on, my speaker phone
was on, and I said blah blah blah, and the
whole conference I just went silent.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Keep your stupid mouth shut.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, that was my moment, one of the most embarrassing
moments I had. But everybody on the call, I assure you,
with the exception of that one attorney that prompted my
blah blah blah, was very happy that I interjected along
those lines. Jay Ratliffe, real quick, hubblays. Any problems out
there today, real quick?

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, a lot of rain unfortunately giving us issues in Chicago,
Detroit's gonna have problems, Atlanta, Charlotte, a lot of issues.
And if you're traveling over the next couple of weeks,
you've not flown in a while. TSA dot Gov great
sight to go to to make sure you're aware of
any changes that may have taken place since the last
time you flow.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
You'll be back in January, Jay Raytle if I trust,
and I'm looking forward to it already. God bless you
your beautiful wife's share you have a wonderful Christmas and
if you're traveling, safe travels. Man appreciate you coming on
the show. It's a fifty six someone a fifty seven