January 15, 2026 • 19 mins
1 - The Delta Air Lines' CEO not happy with President Trump's credit card interest rate cap stance
2 - Louisville plane crash update from the NTSB: Boeing was aware of a possible part defect that led to the crash
3 - An Air Canada flight is delayed after flight crew discovers an employee is locked in the cargo compartment
4 - Allegiant to buy Sun Country for $1.5 Billion
5 - The TSA increases the number of airports with biometric Precheck scanning
6 - Hub Delays
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fifty five CARSD Talk station a time next hell enjoy
sometimes some levity, but also interesting conversation with iHeartMedia aviation
expert Jay Rattlift Jay, Welcome back to the fifty five
Carce Morning Show. My friend is always great having you
on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
That's good to be here, brother.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I got a kick out of it. This is no curveball.
You got a great list of topics to talk about.
But headline from the Wall Street Journal, Dan Siel reporting,
dateline the fourteenth, the futile campaign to get people to
dress better on planes. Sub Captain. US government thinks onboard
behavior will improve if passengers ditch the pajamas. Good luck
(00:39):
with that.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, you know, there is some there are studies that
suggest for people that work at home, if they get
up and go through the same regiment of getting themselves ready,
getting shade cleaned up, ready to go, put on their
professional tire, then go to their office that even though
they're working at home, they've got that set, they're in
that business mode. When you're working in your pajamas or shorts,
(01:05):
whatever might happen to be. You know, some people think
that that's kind of a relaxed setting, that kind of
leads to some relaxed results. You know, you really don't know.
But look, there's no way that we're ever going to
legislate or change the behavior of people. And you know
that so well, Brian, You've talked about it for only
your entire life about you can have any rule law
(01:25):
on the book. It's not going to dictate how people
act and respond. And sadly that's the case. If if
we could come up with a nice incentive, you know,
like the best address gets a free ticket here there,
I mean, you know, maybe you could entice people to
consider it, but unless you give them something in returns,
we're just not going to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, I've heard people lax cltiic. I remember the days
when men wore suits and ties wherever they went. You
look at a ball game, people wore suits and size
well you know what, as like the only set of
clothes they owned. Things were really tight back then. You
didn't have five suits to choose from one every day.
You were the same day of thing every day. So
moving if you stay far enough away from them visually, yeah,
look great, But the closer you got, the less of
(02:06):
a good idea. That was anyway, Jay, in.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
The early days, Brian, American Airlines I'm talking about like
the thirties would pick you up in a limousine, take
you to the airport just because you had a reservation
one of their flights. Wouldn't that be cool?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You were among the holy POLOI back then if you
could afford an airline ticket.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah. Anyhow, Delta with what a chance of something going wrong?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah? Oh god, yeah that's right. I forgot. Air safety
was not up the snuff back then. Computer nowhere near
no ils than those places, Brian.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
The flight attests back then had to be nurses.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Did they really?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I see that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And when you see how those planes were put together,
it makes an incredible sense.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Three eyes, assuming the flight attendants survived. All right, I
have to sign.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
A medical farm before I get on. Yeah, it's a
medical or Leaves just engaged.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That flavor of liability Delta. Delta Airlines CEO not happy
with Donald Trump's credit card interest rate cap does sound
like a rather Democrat kind of idea, capping what corporations
are doing.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, I don't like it either, But you know, Delta
just reported record profits more than a billion dollars for
a single quarter. And look, you and I both know
that wasn't made by us lying back and forth at
Grandma's house. Much of that revenue is driven by those
credit card agreements that they have that for Delta's tied
into their Skymiles frickin flyer program. And that's when the
CEO of Delta at Bastian, we're reacting to President Trump's
(03:33):
mentioning of capping interest rates and credit cards, saying oh, no, no, no,
that would be bad for the economy, is what bed
Bastian said. Brian. When you consider that not a single
major airline would have been profitable in the year twenty
twenty four without the income from those credit card partnerships,
you recognize just how tied into the airlines profits those
(03:57):
credit cards agreements are. And it's just amazing in fact
that the Delta employees are so happy because you and
I may talk about this before, but on Valentine's Day
is the day every year that Delta, when they've got
a profit, they share that with their employees through a
profit sharing program. And I believe they're going to be
getting four four and a half five weeks of pay
(04:18):
as a bonus thank you on Valentine Iday. So that's
because of the profits that were driven again back to
these credit card arrangements.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Wow, that's a pretty nice thank you, very nice thank you, Although.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Nowhere billions of dollars in profit sharing.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Show nowhere near the bonus levels that Joe Strecker gets
every year. Because we'll bring back, we're going to be
talking a little bit about Boeing gets some more bad news.
They were aware of a possible defect that led to
a crash. That sounds familiar. Plus, get the hell out
of the cargo apartment compartment before the plane takes off.
Got that in a hoole up more with Jay righttlift,
(04:58):
don't go away and be right back fifty five KARC.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Steve Perrins god KRC the talk station.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I've never been in a cockpit before. Jay Ratliffe has,
he's I heard. Media aviation expert joins this program every
Thursday beginning at eight thirty for a few segments on
of course, matters related to air and air travel and
of course, potential legal liability. Boeing is always having problems.
You bring that up all the time, and I guess
they're well, are they implicated in this Louisville plane crash.
(05:26):
I know, we have an update from the NTSB on
this one, Jay Ratliffe, what's the story.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, And within that update from the National Transportation Safety Board, Brian,
they found a service letter that Boeing sent to airlines
on February seventh, twenty eleven. Now, all those years ago,
all those years ago, Boeing told airlines that the company
was aware a four previous bearing race that's a part,
(05:51):
but bearing race failures on three different airplanes. Now, Boeing
had seen these fractures of the part and actually with
this part, splitting it two and moving out of place.
Now keep in mind that this specific piece helps to
hold the engines in place on the wing. Boeing what. Yeah.
Boeing went on to say to the airlines that their
review of that bearing failure, in their words, would not
(06:15):
quote would not result in a safety flight flight condition
in the quote. So obviously, the deaths of fifteen people
in Louisville in November certainly suggests otherwise. But look, let's
keep in mind that the Federal Aviation Administration was completely
aware of all this, and they could have called easily
for airlines to replace or increase the inspection rate of
(06:38):
those questions or those parts in question. So but they
elected not to do so based in part on Boeing's position,
and it could be also based on the fact that
airlines were pushing back saying, look, it would take a
lot of time and money to pull these airplanes out
of service, dig into this part to find out and
test it to see if these parts are still good.
(07:00):
But you know, if it's true that safety is our
number one priority, and every airline says that, and I
laugh every time they do because it's not the truth,
then there would have been no question. The same way,
when the Boeing Max crashes were happening, the easiest thing
to do for Southwest Delta or not Delta United American
Southwest was to pull the few and all they had
(07:22):
was a few of those Boeing Max airplanes out of
service until they found out what was going on. It
represented like less than five percent of their fleet, and
the airlines opted not to do it, even when the
FA at the time wasn't going to ground that airplane.
But here again we've got a situation of Boeing be
more aware of something, communicating that to the airlines and
trying to downplay it and sadly, we had a loss
(07:45):
of life, horrific loss of life in Louisville.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Obviously, it's been suggested, I think of Hollywood movies that
you know, manufacturers will do a cost benefit analysis. Well,
of the million widgets we've got in the world, we
found that this defect may result in five people dying
it to replace it or fix the widge. It's going
to cost us X millions of dollars. If we just
ignore it and pay off the individual claim, we're going
to be a lot better off financially. Do you think
(08:09):
that type of analysis was actually done when they decided
not to go down the road of inspecting these particular parts. Man,
we may get one fall out of the sky, but
in the final analysis, it'll cost us a hell of
a lot more to stay up on top of this
and ahead of time.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I totally believe that, and I hate to say that,
but when you look at the history of recommendations made
by the National Transfertation Safety Board following every accident or
near accident, they'll give the Federal Aviation Administration bright a
list ten fifteen to twenty different items that they said, hey,
we identified these as either potential contributing causes or direct
(08:43):
contributing causes to this accident which resulted in a loss
of life, and here's our recommendations, topix it and if
the airlines then many times we'll push back on some
of those recommendations saying no, that would cost too much money,
blah blah blah blah blah. And only a few, if any,
of those recommendations are ever care right forward. And it's
maddening when you think about it, because the NTSB's entire
(09:05):
purpose is to investigate the accident or air accident, come
up with the cause or contributing causes. Many times there's
far more than just one direct cause. But then they
list those recommendations on how we can make aviation safer.
And the reason that we've enjoyed the safest air era
of commercial jet travel leading up to this year or
(09:26):
last year with the January plane crash in DC and
then the Alaskan plane crash a month later, was because
of the fact that we've made such great strides and safety,
both in the type of equipment that's use on board
an airplane to make sure it's not it's fire retardant,
making sure certain seats and certain things are manufactured in
(09:46):
such a way that could better withstand a crash and
protect the people that are inside an airplane in the
event something you know, horrific happens. And it's all because
of those recommendations. I remember the Common Air crash, or
the Cincinnati crash we had with Air Canada back in
the early eighties that caught on fire and had land
at Cincinnati. The National Transportation Safety Board, I think, came
(10:08):
out with twenty some recommendations, and one of them was
to have those lights along the floor that would lead
you to an exit in the event that the cabin
was filled with smoke, you got disoriented, didn't know which
way to go. That was one of the many recommendations
made by the NTSB as a direct result of that
Air Canada crash that we had here in Cincinnati. So
(10:31):
the entire thing is set up to try to make
things safer, and that's one of the things that just
bothers me to no end when there's pushback on some
of these obvious safety related issues being put in and
to your point exactly, and that's the reason I love
talking to you, because you add that liability side to
(10:51):
the discussion and they say the exact same thing. That's
like airlines being told, Look, instead of having a black
box on an airplane, we could put up a component
on there that would be automatically transmitting all the black
box data really from the airplane to a central spot,
so that if an airplane crashed at see, we didn't
have to go looking for the black boxes. We knew
(11:12):
exactly what happened. The problem is the cost per aircraft
is more than one hundred thousand dollars, and when you
recognize most crashes happen on takeoff and landing over land
near an airport, the thought is, why would we spend
one hundred grand per airplane, tens of millions of dollars
for something that would only be used in a small
percentage of the of the accident. So it's an unfortunate discussion.
(11:33):
But once again you're spot on.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I appreciate that. Jay, We're going to come up. Don't
get locked in the cargo compartment. I'm a little worried
about this other topic. TSA has increased the number of
airports with biometric pre check scanning that more with Jay
Rylov one more here fifty five K see the talk
stations stick around fifty five The talk station.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Is life insurance part of your new year's resolution.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Listen, if you're young and healthy, it's simple and any
old agent can get it done. But if you're fifty
to sixty years old with it to say, it is
eight forty nine, it's fifty five KRC detok station, it's
iHeartMedia aviation expert Jay Rat Jay got a few more
(12:17):
topics here we can try to cram in there. I immediately,
of course, thought of you. Any aviation topic I run
across in my day to day preparation for the show,
it's obviously you. I think about this one I thought
was a kind of comical, although it would freak me
out if I was the employee that got locked in
the cargo compartment on a plane that was ready to
take off.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, and it happens. It's happened several times. But this
was near Canada flight leaving Vancouver. They pushed back from
the gate, they're taxing for takeoff, when all of a sudden,
passengers start hearing this loud thump on the floor from underneath,
and they notify the flight attendants, and flight attentions obviously conclude, look,
we've got somebody in the cargo hold. Underneath this and
(12:57):
we're taxing for takeoff. Now, worst case scenario, had the
plane taken off that the forward of the forward cargo
compartment is pressurized, the person would not have been in
any immediate danger unless there was turbulence and bags are
flying and something happens like that. We've had people that
that's happened and they get to the next city and
you know, out they pop. But in this case, you're
(13:19):
still on the ground. So the crew decided to stop.
They turned back to the gate, and it's a security
issue as well, because you don't know if if it's
a stoleway, and how they got on the plane, and
so you've got security involved, and it's a process. So
they get back and they pop it, and sure enough
they find out that the person in there was an employee.
And the delay was such that the crew actually timed
(13:40):
out so they couldn't continue the flight. After that delay,
they had of another crew come in and take care
of them. So it really created a problem. The question
I keep getting is, Jay, how in the world would
that happen. Well, when you're on the ground working the ramp,
it's a very loud environment. People are wearing the ear
suppression headphones and things over there, so you don't hear
a lot, and the cargo compartment many times twenty thirty
(14:04):
feet deep, and you've got bags piled up all over
the place, and occasionally a passenger side not to fly,
and you grab somebody, say find this bag, because the
bag can't fly without the person. So in they go,
and it may be totally the other ramp agents may
be totally unaware of it that you've got somebody in there,
so before they close it, they might kind of give
it a cursory glance. Okay, nobody's in there, turn the
(14:26):
light out, drop the door, and off they go. And
of course, if you're buried in the bags trying to
find something, by the time you get back to the door,
nobody's going to hear you. And then off it goes.
There's no direct way for the agents to communicate with
the cockpit that hey, I'm still in here. So yeah,
it was a it was a scary situation for the individual.
We've had some agents get up there and they're waiting
(14:47):
for additional bags to arrive, they fall asleep and they
open another city. Oh yeah, yeah, you can google it.
There's been eight or ten instances over the last ten years.
I can think of where we've talked about it where
agents have gotten up there and gotten in there and
the door's been shut quickly and that plane goes it
takes off.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Unlike the idiots who get into the landing gear area
where they're exposed with no pressurization in sub zero temperatures.
That's not the case in.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
The United Space limited.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Bagage compartment though, is it. I mean no, no, no, it's pressure.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Keep in mind behind the wing on some of the aircraft,
that particular cargo compartment many times is not pressurized and
you could be dealing with UH temperatures that could approach
hypothermia type level. So that's always a concern in the rear.
But this was up in the forward compartment where you
put the animals and in everything that are going to
(15:41):
be traveling as cargo, UH and baggage. So yeah, there
was Again wasn't any direct situation there, but as far
as you know, somebody getting hurt, but yeah, imagine being
on there and you hear this thumping coming from underneath
your feet. You'd have no idea what was going on.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
All right, at the risk of not being able to
get to a legion buying Sun Country you for one
point five billion. What's this? TSA increasing biometric PreCheck scanning.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It's a program that allows travelers in the pre check
line to use biometric scans of our faces during the
airport security check in. It would allow us to keep
our driver's license or passports in our pocket. You can
sign up for once you're a member of pre check,
you can have this scan where you can have your
facial scan done so that you can basically zip through
(16:29):
the security checkpoints on a prim at all. The TSA
has this at twenty airports already. They're increasing this to
forty five including Cincinnati this spring. And again it's optional,
you don't have to do it, but it's a step
in that same progression that you and I've talked about
before where we've got a lot of individuals or achieving
a lot of airlines that are looking at using facial
recognition at the ticket counter where you can pop up,
(16:51):
have your face scan three seconds, boom at you tag
the bags, off you go. It speeds up the process.
You're going to use it. The TSA more and more
airlines that they are also going to use this as
well as far as proving who we are before we
board an airplane. It's also going to allow them to
reduce the head count at a lot of these stations
as well, which is the ultimate drive here, is to
use artificial intelligence to reduce the operating expenses. They're going
(17:15):
to sell it to us as increase safety, more customer service,
blah blah blah. None of that's the case, while some
of it is, but the biggest thing is to help
the airlines reduce their costs by relying more on that.
And people that don't want to be involved in this
brant they don't have to. You can opt out of it.
It's not a big issue. But for those that do,
it's going to be a way to kind of speed
you through the securining process. And I certainly think that's
(17:37):
a good idea. Look, they've already got my face somewhere
right Well, you walk into a casino, they've got your face.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I was just going to say, you've got acknowledge that
whether or not you like this idea, it's really happening
around you all the time.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You go to a sporting event, you go to an airport,
you go again to a casine. It's there they use
this constantly as a threat assessment when they've got an
event going on. So the idea that you know we're
not going to be a part of it, well we
kind of already are if we live anywhere near these places.
It's like people running into a casino or an airport saying, look,
i'll get away from you know where nobody can see me. Well,
(18:14):
you you're walking into a b' like going into a bank.
You know nobody's gonna see me here.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, right, all right, Well let's go directly since we're
out of time. Hub delays. How's it looking out there
for air travel?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Jay, ratlift Minneapolis is going to be one at Boston
as well, let us know, but it's leaving most of
the hubs alone. So I think it's going to be
a day of minimal delays. So probably some de icing
quick delays as you depart today, but all in all,
should be a pretty good day to fly.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Jay Ratliffe, always a distinct pleasure to have you on
the fifty five Cascene Morning show. Love the topics, love
the conversation, and I'm looking forward to Thursday next week already,
So we'll do it again next Thursday, beginning at eight
thirty podcast This conversation fifty five care Sea dot Com
as always best to health and love to you and
your better half, Jay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Rattlift appreciate that, my friend.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Thank you, Thanks brother eight fifty sixty five Cares to
Detox Station Congressman Warren Davidson
Fifty five CARSD Talk station a time next hell enjoy
sometimes some levity, but also interesting conversation with iHeartMedia aviation
expert Jay Rattlift Jay, Welcome back to the fifty five
Carce Morning Show. My friend is always great having you
on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
That's good to be here, brother.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I got a kick out of it. This is no curveball.
You got a great list of topics to talk about.
But headline from the Wall Street Journal, Dan Siel reporting,
dateline the fourteenth, the futile campaign to get people to
dress better on planes. Sub Captain. US government thinks onboard
behavior will improve if passengers ditch the pajamas. Good luck
(00:39):
with that.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, you know, there is some there are studies that
suggest for people that work at home, if they get
up and go through the same regiment of getting themselves ready,
getting shade cleaned up, ready to go, put on their
professional tire, then go to their office that even though
they're working at home, they've got that set, they're in
that business mode. When you're working in your pajamas or shorts,
(01:05):
whatever might happen to be. You know, some people think
that that's kind of a relaxed setting, that kind of
leads to some relaxed results. You know, you really don't know.
But look, there's no way that we're ever going to
legislate or change the behavior of people. And you know
that so well, Brian, You've talked about it for only
your entire life about you can have any rule law
(01:25):
on the book. It's not going to dictate how people
act and respond. And sadly that's the case. If if
we could come up with a nice incentive, you know,
like the best address gets a free ticket here there,
I mean, you know, maybe you could entice people to
consider it, but unless you give them something in returns,
we're just not going to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, I've heard people lax cltiic. I remember the days
when men wore suits and ties wherever they went. You
look at a ball game, people wore suits and size
well you know what, as like the only set of
clothes they owned. Things were really tight back then. You
didn't have five suits to choose from one every day.
You were the same day of thing every day. So
moving if you stay far enough away from them visually, yeah,
look great, But the closer you got, the less of
(02:06):
a good idea. That was anyway, Jay, in.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
The early days, Brian, American Airlines I'm talking about like
the thirties would pick you up in a limousine, take
you to the airport just because you had a reservation
one of their flights. Wouldn't that be cool?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You were among the holy POLOI back then if you
could afford an airline ticket.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah. Anyhow, Delta with what a chance of something going wrong?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah? Oh god, yeah that's right. I forgot. Air safety
was not up the snuff back then. Computer nowhere near
no ils than those places, Brian.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
The flight attests back then had to be nurses.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Did they really?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I see that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And when you see how those planes were put together,
it makes an incredible sense.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Three eyes, assuming the flight attendants survived. All right, I
have to sign.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
A medical farm before I get on. Yeah, it's a
medical or Leaves just engaged.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That flavor of liability Delta. Delta Airlines CEO not happy
with Donald Trump's credit card interest rate cap does sound
like a rather Democrat kind of idea, capping what corporations
are doing.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, I don't like it either, But you know, Delta
just reported record profits more than a billion dollars for
a single quarter. And look, you and I both know
that wasn't made by us lying back and forth at
Grandma's house. Much of that revenue is driven by those
credit card agreements that they have that for Delta's tied
into their Skymiles frickin flyer program. And that's when the
CEO of Delta at Bastian, we're reacting to President Trump's
(03:33):
mentioning of capping interest rates and credit cards, saying oh, no, no, no,
that would be bad for the economy, is what bed
Bastian said. Brian. When you consider that not a single
major airline would have been profitable in the year twenty
twenty four without the income from those credit card partnerships,
you recognize just how tied into the airlines profits those
(03:57):
credit cards agreements are. And it's just amazing in fact
that the Delta employees are so happy because you and
I may talk about this before, but on Valentine's Day
is the day every year that Delta, when they've got
a profit, they share that with their employees through a
profit sharing program. And I believe they're going to be
getting four four and a half five weeks of pay
(04:18):
as a bonus thank you on Valentine Iday. So that's
because of the profits that were driven again back to
these credit card arrangements.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Wow, that's a pretty nice thank you, very nice thank you, Although.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Nowhere billions of dollars in profit sharing.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Show nowhere near the bonus levels that Joe Strecker gets
every year. Because we'll bring back, we're going to be
talking a little bit about Boeing gets some more bad news.
They were aware of a possible defect that led to
a crash. That sounds familiar. Plus, get the hell out
of the cargo apartment compartment before the plane takes off.
Got that in a hoole up more with Jay righttlift,
(04:58):
don't go away and be right back fifty five KARC.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Steve Perrins god KRC the talk station.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I've never been in a cockpit before. Jay Ratliffe has,
he's I heard. Media aviation expert joins this program every
Thursday beginning at eight thirty for a few segments on
of course, matters related to air and air travel and
of course, potential legal liability. Boeing is always having problems.
You bring that up all the time, and I guess
they're well, are they implicated in this Louisville plane crash.
(05:26):
I know, we have an update from the NTSB on
this one, Jay Ratliffe, what's the story.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, And within that update from the National Transportation Safety Board, Brian,
they found a service letter that Boeing sent to airlines
on February seventh, twenty eleven. Now, all those years ago,
all those years ago, Boeing told airlines that the company
was aware a four previous bearing race that's a part,
(05:51):
but bearing race failures on three different airplanes. Now, Boeing
had seen these fractures of the part and actually with
this part, splitting it two and moving out of place.
Now keep in mind that this specific piece helps to
hold the engines in place on the wing. Boeing what. Yeah.
Boeing went on to say to the airlines that their
review of that bearing failure, in their words, would not
(06:15):
quote would not result in a safety flight flight condition
in the quote. So obviously, the deaths of fifteen people
in Louisville in November certainly suggests otherwise. But look, let's
keep in mind that the Federal Aviation Administration was completely
aware of all this, and they could have called easily
for airlines to replace or increase the inspection rate of
(06:38):
those questions or those parts in question. So but they
elected not to do so based in part on Boeing's position,
and it could be also based on the fact that
airlines were pushing back saying, look, it would take a
lot of time and money to pull these airplanes out
of service, dig into this part to find out and
test it to see if these parts are still good.
(07:00):
But you know, if it's true that safety is our
number one priority, and every airline says that, and I
laugh every time they do because it's not the truth,
then there would have been no question. The same way,
when the Boeing Max crashes were happening, the easiest thing
to do for Southwest Delta or not Delta United American
Southwest was to pull the few and all they had
(07:22):
was a few of those Boeing Max airplanes out of
service until they found out what was going on. It
represented like less than five percent of their fleet, and
the airlines opted not to do it, even when the
FA at the time wasn't going to ground that airplane.
But here again we've got a situation of Boeing be
more aware of something, communicating that to the airlines and
trying to downplay it and sadly, we had a loss
(07:45):
of life, horrific loss of life in Louisville.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Obviously, it's been suggested, I think of Hollywood movies that
you know, manufacturers will do a cost benefit analysis. Well,
of the million widgets we've got in the world, we
found that this defect may result in five people dying
it to replace it or fix the widge. It's going
to cost us X millions of dollars. If we just
ignore it and pay off the individual claim, we're going
to be a lot better off financially. Do you think
(08:09):
that type of analysis was actually done when they decided
not to go down the road of inspecting these particular parts. Man,
we may get one fall out of the sky, but
in the final analysis, it'll cost us a hell of
a lot more to stay up on top of this
and ahead of time.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I totally believe that, and I hate to say that,
but when you look at the history of recommendations made
by the National Transfertation Safety Board following every accident or
near accident, they'll give the Federal Aviation Administration bright a
list ten fifteen to twenty different items that they said, hey,
we identified these as either potential contributing causes or direct
(08:43):
contributing causes to this accident which resulted in a loss
of life, and here's our recommendations, topix it and if
the airlines then many times we'll push back on some
of those recommendations saying no, that would cost too much money,
blah blah blah blah blah. And only a few, if any,
of those recommendations are ever care right forward. And it's
maddening when you think about it, because the NTSB's entire
(09:05):
purpose is to investigate the accident or air accident, come
up with the cause or contributing causes. Many times there's
far more than just one direct cause. But then they
list those recommendations on how we can make aviation safer.
And the reason that we've enjoyed the safest air era
of commercial jet travel leading up to this year or
(09:26):
last year with the January plane crash in DC and
then the Alaskan plane crash a month later, was because
of the fact that we've made such great strides and safety,
both in the type of equipment that's use on board
an airplane to make sure it's not it's fire retardant,
making sure certain seats and certain things are manufactured in
(09:46):
such a way that could better withstand a crash and
protect the people that are inside an airplane in the
event something you know, horrific happens. And it's all because
of those recommendations. I remember the Common Air crash, or
the Cincinnati crash we had with Air Canada back in
the early eighties that caught on fire and had land
at Cincinnati. The National Transportation Safety Board, I think, came
(10:08):
out with twenty some recommendations, and one of them was
to have those lights along the floor that would lead
you to an exit in the event that the cabin
was filled with smoke, you got disoriented, didn't know which
way to go. That was one of the many recommendations
made by the NTSB as a direct result of that
Air Canada crash that we had here in Cincinnati. So
(10:31):
the entire thing is set up to try to make
things safer, and that's one of the things that just
bothers me to no end when there's pushback on some
of these obvious safety related issues being put in and
to your point exactly, and that's the reason I love
talking to you, because you add that liability side to
(10:51):
the discussion and they say the exact same thing. That's
like airlines being told, Look, instead of having a black
box on an airplane, we could put up a component
on there that would be automatically transmitting all the black
box data really from the airplane to a central spot,
so that if an airplane crashed at see, we didn't
have to go looking for the black boxes. We knew
(11:12):
exactly what happened. The problem is the cost per aircraft
is more than one hundred thousand dollars, and when you
recognize most crashes happen on takeoff and landing over land
near an airport, the thought is, why would we spend
one hundred grand per airplane, tens of millions of dollars
for something that would only be used in a small
percentage of the of the accident. So it's an unfortunate discussion.
(11:33):
But once again you're spot on.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I appreciate that. Jay, We're going to come up. Don't
get locked in the cargo compartment. I'm a little worried
about this other topic. TSA has increased the number of
airports with biometric pre check scanning that more with Jay
Rylov one more here fifty five K see the talk
stations stick around fifty five The talk station.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Is life insurance part of your new year's resolution.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Listen, if you're young and healthy, it's simple and any
old agent can get it done. But if you're fifty
to sixty years old with it to say, it is
eight forty nine, it's fifty five KRC detok station, it's
iHeartMedia aviation expert Jay Rat Jay got a few more
(12:17):
topics here we can try to cram in there. I immediately,
of course, thought of you. Any aviation topic I run
across in my day to day preparation for the show,
it's obviously you. I think about this one I thought
was a kind of comical, although it would freak me
out if I was the employee that got locked in
the cargo compartment on a plane that was ready to
take off.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, and it happens. It's happened several times. But this
was near Canada flight leaving Vancouver. They pushed back from
the gate, they're taxing for takeoff, when all of a sudden,
passengers start hearing this loud thump on the floor from underneath,
and they notify the flight attendants, and flight attentions obviously conclude, look,
we've got somebody in the cargo hold. Underneath this and
(12:57):
we're taxing for takeoff. Now, worst case scenario, had the
plane taken off that the forward of the forward cargo
compartment is pressurized, the person would not have been in
any immediate danger unless there was turbulence and bags are
flying and something happens like that. We've had people that
that's happened and they get to the next city and
you know, out they pop. But in this case, you're
(13:19):
still on the ground. So the crew decided to stop.
They turned back to the gate, and it's a security
issue as well, because you don't know if if it's
a stoleway, and how they got on the plane, and
so you've got security involved, and it's a process. So
they get back and they pop it, and sure enough
they find out that the person in there was an employee.
And the delay was such that the crew actually timed
(13:40):
out so they couldn't continue the flight. After that delay,
they had of another crew come in and take care
of them. So it really created a problem. The question
I keep getting is, Jay, how in the world would
that happen. Well, when you're on the ground working the ramp,
it's a very loud environment. People are wearing the ear
suppression headphones and things over there, so you don't hear
a lot, and the cargo compartment many times twenty thirty
(14:04):
feet deep, and you've got bags piled up all over
the place, and occasionally a passenger side not to fly,
and you grab somebody, say find this bag, because the
bag can't fly without the person. So in they go,
and it may be totally the other ramp agents may
be totally unaware of it that you've got somebody in there,
so before they close it, they might kind of give
it a cursory glance. Okay, nobody's in there, turn the
(14:26):
light out, drop the door, and off they go. And
of course, if you're buried in the bags trying to
find something, by the time you get back to the door,
nobody's going to hear you. And then off it goes.
There's no direct way for the agents to communicate with
the cockpit that hey, I'm still in here. So yeah,
it was a it was a scary situation for the individual.
We've had some agents get up there and they're waiting
(14:47):
for additional bags to arrive, they fall asleep and they
open another city. Oh yeah, yeah, you can google it.
There's been eight or ten instances over the last ten years.
I can think of where we've talked about it where
agents have gotten up there and gotten in there and
the door's been shut quickly and that plane goes it
takes off.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Unlike the idiots who get into the landing gear area
where they're exposed with no pressurization in sub zero temperatures.
That's not the case in.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
The United Space limited.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Bagage compartment though, is it. I mean no, no, no, it's pressure.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Keep in mind behind the wing on some of the aircraft,
that particular cargo compartment many times is not pressurized and
you could be dealing with UH temperatures that could approach
hypothermia type level. So that's always a concern in the rear.
But this was up in the forward compartment where you
put the animals and in everything that are going to
(15:41):
be traveling as cargo, UH and baggage. So yeah, there
was Again wasn't any direct situation there, but as far
as you know, somebody getting hurt, but yeah, imagine being
on there and you hear this thumping coming from underneath
your feet. You'd have no idea what was going on.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
All right, at the risk of not being able to
get to a legion buying Sun Country you for one
point five billion. What's this? TSA increasing biometric PreCheck scanning.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It's a program that allows travelers in the pre check
line to use biometric scans of our faces during the
airport security check in. It would allow us to keep
our driver's license or passports in our pocket. You can
sign up for once you're a member of pre check,
you can have this scan where you can have your
facial scan done so that you can basically zip through
(16:29):
the security checkpoints on a prim at all. The TSA
has this at twenty airports already. They're increasing this to
forty five including Cincinnati this spring. And again it's optional,
you don't have to do it, but it's a step
in that same progression that you and I've talked about
before where we've got a lot of individuals or achieving
a lot of airlines that are looking at using facial
recognition at the ticket counter where you can pop up,
(16:51):
have your face scan three seconds, boom at you tag
the bags, off you go. It speeds up the process.
You're going to use it. The TSA more and more
airlines that they are also going to use this as
well as far as proving who we are before we
board an airplane. It's also going to allow them to
reduce the head count at a lot of these stations
as well, which is the ultimate drive here, is to
use artificial intelligence to reduce the operating expenses. They're going
(17:15):
to sell it to us as increase safety, more customer service,
blah blah blah. None of that's the case, while some
of it is, but the biggest thing is to help
the airlines reduce their costs by relying more on that.
And people that don't want to be involved in this
brant they don't have to. You can opt out of it.
It's not a big issue. But for those that do,
it's going to be a way to kind of speed
you through the securining process. And I certainly think that's
(17:37):
a good idea. Look, they've already got my face somewhere
right Well, you walk into a casino, they've got your face.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I was just going to say, you've got acknowledge that
whether or not you like this idea, it's really happening
around you all the time.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You go to a sporting event, you go to an airport,
you go again to a casine. It's there they use
this constantly as a threat assessment when they've got an
event going on. So the idea that you know we're
not going to be a part of it, well we
kind of already are if we live anywhere near these places.
It's like people running into a casino or an airport saying, look,
i'll get away from you know where nobody can see me. Well,
(18:14):
you you're walking into a b' like going into a bank.
You know nobody's gonna see me here.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, right, all right, Well let's go directly since we're
out of time. Hub delays. How's it looking out there
for air travel?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Jay, ratlift Minneapolis is going to be one at Boston
as well, let us know, but it's leaving most of
the hubs alone. So I think it's going to be
a day of minimal delays. So probably some de icing
quick delays as you depart today, but all in all,
should be a pretty good day to fly.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Jay Ratliffe, always a distinct pleasure to have you on
the fifty five Cascene Morning show. Love the topics, love
the conversation, and I'm looking forward to Thursday next week already,
So we'll do it again next Thursday, beginning at eight
thirty podcast This conversation fifty five care Sea dot Com
as always best to health and love to you and
your better half, Jay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Rattlift appreciate that, my friend.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Thank you, Thanks brother eight fifty sixty five Cares to
Detox Station Congressman Warren Davidson
Brian Thomas News
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