January 22, 2026 • 19 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If I'm KRZ the Talk station.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hey, twenty nine fifty have KRC the talk station. Very
Happy Friday Eve. You made extra special every Friday or
Friday Eve at this time anyway with iHeartMedia aviation expert
Jay Ratliffe, Jay, welcome back, my friend. It's always great
having you on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Oh the highlight of my day. Brother. Let's talk to you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
So kind of you to say, and I've been giving
thanks to everyone who's wished me well having the chemo treatments.
And actually your post on Facebook, I know you didn't
mention me specifically, but I knew darn well who you
were talking about since we talked about that brought a
tear to my eye. All the response. You have a
lot of people out in the prayer community answering the
challenge man, that I'll give credit to you and all
those others who you know prayed for me in my
(00:41):
in my good health, because I'm I'm pretty much firing
on all cylinders today after a few days of downtime.
So it's a small price to pay.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Was the six hour six hour treatment? Man, I tell
you that that that's got to be rough, and you've
been through stuff like this before, and it's you know,
I mean just I mean, how arrogant is it of
us every day wake up and just take the day
we've been given like it's it's owed to us, it's
it's deserved it. Yeah, I mean it's it's a daily gift.
(01:08):
And you just never know what's going to happen. So
many days, at the end of the day, I pray,
thank God, today wasn't the worst day of my life.
Thank God nothing happened where friends or family were suddenly
removed out of my life. I mean, you just just
when you look at life as just a daily gift
that I think allows us to let the small stuff
just kind of slide by without us getting too worked.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Up over it.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Beautiful philosophy, man, beautiful all right, I tell you what
I'm gonna do. I'm not throwing a real curve ball
at you, but I am going to change the order
of things. Given we've got Snowmageddon coming in, and assuming
that we do get Snowmageddon, I'm not asking you to
predict exactly where the hub delays will be, but it
sounds to me like we're going to have some travel
challenges going over the weekend.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Jay I can do pretty good with that.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I mean, we know that this massive storm is set
to create a weekend to havoc across the country, and
we're already seeing airlines adjust their flights schedules accordingly. We're
looking at twenty hours of freezing rain in Dallas and
that's going to impact American Airlines hub that's there, so
we're seeing some big issues there. The mess is expected
in Houston and that's a United hub, so we're seeing
(02:13):
both of these airlines cancel flights in advance. And as
this storm spreads across the country, you know, through US
from Memphis through US towards the northeast, we're looking at
tens of thousands of flights that are going to be
going to be impacted as well. Airlines have issued a
weather waiver that's for any passenger that's traveling to or
through any of these affected areas. If you want to
(02:34):
change your itinerary to travel at a different time, you
can do so absent a change fee. And I think
it's going to be so bad that it's actually going
to be something that's going to spill into Monday morning
because it's going to be a weekend event, and that's
going to prevent some aircraft from reaching their final destination
on Sunday night. That makes up the Monday morning originators.
(02:55):
So it is going to be again just wall to
wall have with everything that's going to be going on.
And if it's just snow, I mean, airlines can operate
in snow, they just do it more slowly. But when
you're talking about three, four or five inches of ice
and those types of things, airlines are going to cancel
the flight because you're not gonna put an aircraft that
could a go off a runway, off of a taxiway,
(03:18):
not be able to be under a complete control on
the tarmac. Those kinds of things can really create a
safety issue. Plus it venience for passengers.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, well plus lift the wings. Once does the ice,
you're good to go.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And but yeah, the whole point is that airlines see
this storm coming and look, I'm just glad it wasn't
a month ago. Can you imagine, you know, December twenty third,
twenty fourth, we're talking about this kind of storm, So
thankfully it was now. But airlines do a horrible job
at customer service. But I always have to give them
high marks when it comes to irregular operations. And weather
(03:55):
related events. They're they're going to make sure that, look,
if we need to cancel this flight, let's do it
so we can notify people at home so that you know,
they don't get to fight to get to the airport
only to find out the flight's been canceled. And sometimes
it's just a matter of an online reroute. You might
be flying American Airlines through Dallas and it's going to
be a mess, and they may say, well, Chicago's going
to be less of a mess. Let us route you
(04:16):
through there because January is not known as a busy,
heavy travel month, so as a result, they might have
some options. So you know, American Airlines just rolled out
this new app that if your itinerary is impacted by
any sort of irregular operation, they send you a link.
You click on it and they give you a bunch
of options as far as what you want to do.
Take this light, this light or that flight cancel or
(04:38):
if you need to spend the night, here's something to
click on to get your hotel voucher. Oh you need
transportation vouchers here it is click on that. It's immediate,
and it's just great use of their new It's kind
of an AI type of thing. But it's great that
Americans putting that power in the palm of people's hands,
because in a storm like this, I'm telling you it's
going to come in handy.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Well, we're almost out of time. Let's go ahead and
call it early this time because it sounds cool, but
it sounds like a really really bad idea to me.
Flying cars getting ready to launch, and apparently ozempic is
saving the airlines millions or will be anyway more. With
Iheartmediaviation Expert, Jay Ratlifts Stickgram fifty five, KRC dot com,
you're one stop for advertising.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
But KRC Deep Talk station. Have you ever been in
a cockpit before?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Well, of course, j Ratlift has I Heart Mediaviation Expert.
We get them every Thursday a few segments talk aviation
realities and this now I Initially my reaction is oh cool.
I've been reading about this my entire life. It looks
like flying cars, especially at the low low price of
forty thousand dollars, are getting ready to be delivered, maybe
as early as the second quarter of this year by
(05:45):
this new tech company. But you don't have to be
a pilot to fly one. And we're bad enough out
on the roads where we have speed limits and and
lane signs and markers and stop signs. What in the
hell is the world going to look like if every
time Dick and Harry has a flying car in their driveway, Jay.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I mean, this is the Richter X four.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
The Richter X four has a list price of thirty
nine nine dollars. That's what they're saying is gonna be
rolled out. It's a single passenger electric vertical takeoff and
landing aircraft could used as a car. It's designed to
make short range personal flights more accessible, and they're saying
more affordable. And the essence is the top speed of
this bad boy's fifty miles an hour, so you don't
(06:31):
have to worry about any top gun maneuvers. Maximum flight
time with your electric battery.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeh.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
The payload capacity two hundred and twenty pounds, nothing more
than that. And again, as you mentioned, experimental aircraft, meaning
the FAA says no pilot license is required. And that's
where the fun or tear begins, depending on how you
want to look at it, because I mean, we see
road grade every day. I can't imagine. I mean, it's
just I don't see this happening for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
What I do see happening is something that the technology
is very very close, and that's these air taxis or
air ubers, where you have a vehicle that lands in
your driveway, you climb in, it's a pre programmed off off,
it flies you to your destination and lands. It's a
short range type of thing, but that way, it's pre
programmed a specific flightpath. Nothing is going to be directing
(07:25):
it into power lines, buildings, another vehicle or anything along
those lines. And you know that's where things are I
think headed.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
You know, I'm still waiting for Amazon to deliver my
pizza to the driveway with a drone, So we're not
there yet. So I suspect it's gonna be wild for
these air taxis, but find there's several steps that we're
moving into that direction, and eventually that's going to be
the case. Airlines like Delta United American they have spent
just a trum hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars
investing in this technology for these air uber type things
(07:57):
because they see those as things that will feed their
hubs in places like New York and Dallas and Houston
to bring people from areas around the airport straight to
the airport where you don't have to mess with the
hassle of parking and all the traffic.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well, I can only see this resulting in immediate legislation
to the extent these things become readily available. There's no
way they're going to let us just fly around without
some kind of rules and regulations and licensing. We'll wait
popcorns out.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Imagine I'm plying to like a Bengals game, and then
the state of people after the game when they're trying
to fly those.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
No, thank you, especially after a tailgate party.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Exactly my thought.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
All right, moving over, I thought this was comical. I
didn't read the article. I just saw your headline. Weight
loss drugs could actually save airlines five and eighty dollars
a year, A little side benefit from the ozempic class drugs.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I guess that's exactly it.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
There was a study that was put out by Jeffries,
They're a financial services firm, and said, look, the four
largest airlines American, Delta, Southwest, United could save collectively that
five hundred and eighty million or more on fuel thanks
to those drug related things that are going going crazy
right now. And they're saying less fuel means lighter passengers,
(09:18):
which means the airlines can use less fuel to get
the planes to their destination and they can make.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Even more money.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Now, the fun part would be if they were going
to reward us for losing that weight by lowering our fares,
but we both.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Know that's not going to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
United and Delta just now, they recently both reported their
quarterly profit of more than a billion dollars in a quarter.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Now, I mean, when.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
You think about the history of aviation, the idea of
a making any money in a year was unbelievable. If
you made a billion in a year, it was historic.
And now they're rolling these things out quarterly because the
credit card stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You and I've talked about before.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
But remember, no airline would have made any money in
twenty twenty four absent of their credit card agreement. So
when you see the airlines are making that and now
an extra five hundred and eighty million dollars collectively on
top because we're losing weight, just doesn't seem fair.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I guess the one benefit to the consumer the larger
among us won't have to buy two seats anymore if
they stick with the ozempeic and lose the weight, well.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yea, And airlines continue to kind of amend their plus
size passenger policy, becoming a little bit more hard to
work with. And you know, the airline seats keep getting smaller.
And that's the other thing with weight and balance on
an aircraft. As soon as somebody comes out with a
seat as FAA approved crash resistant and all the things
we have to have that's lighter than what's being used,
(10:47):
airlines are going to use it. Oh yeah, it may
be a whole lot less comfortable, but you know, if
you're only on the plane two three four hours, what's
the big deal.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It's better than a.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
You know, perhaps a wooden pew at church or a
bus seat, So why not let's throw them in there?
So you know, waiting, balance is everything on this stuff,
and I don't know. We'll see where all of it goes.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We will, And coming up the next segment, we'll learn
if Loofkanza's new rules regarding lithium battery are good and
if we will learn something from those those things freak
me out, Jay Ratliff anymore, after all your stories on
those lithium batteries, got more other I've got a lot
of other stories to talk about it. I don't think
we're going to get through all of them. We'll give
it our best. One more with Jay Ratliffs stick around
(11:27):
fifty five the talk station caresee the talk station Happy Friday,
Eve Tomorrow Tech Friday with Dave hat Or Jack Windsor
returns as well. And in the meantime, I heart me
the aviation expert Jay Ratliffe BLUs to have them for
a full three segments on a Thursday. And what's with
looft Tonza? They are dealing with the whole concept of
lithium battery powered devices, which you have brought to my
(11:50):
attention more than one occasion, freaking me out. Those things
catch on fire. We all know about that, but oh lo,
and behold, what if someone stowed one away in a
baggage compartment down below the plane? You got a problem
on that when they're not supposed to go there. So
how did luftons there is? How is Luftonso approaching this
new rule?
Speaker 3 (12:08):
When you look at some of the YouTube videos and
things that are out there that show how fast these
electronic lithium power devices smolder, and ignite. I mean it's
almost instantaneous. So Luthon's is saying, for those passengers that
are bringing the power pack devices onto their plane that
you use to charge your devices, One, you can't bring
(12:29):
any more than two. The second thing is you cannot
use them during the course of the flight. Three they
are not to go into the overhead storage compartment. They're
to be under your seat or in the seat pocket
in front of you. The reason for that is they
want them to be visually there so that if they
start to smolder, the passenger will know about it immediately,
(12:50):
they can notify the flight attendant. If it's in the
overhead storage compartment, it could smolder for a period of
time and it actually catch fire before anybody's aware of
what's going on. So that's what sluthonza, which is copying
a lot of what other airlines have been doing. And Brian,
all you've got to do is is google the image
of air Boossan that's b U S A M. And
(13:10):
you can see what's left of an airplane that was
at the gate when they were boarding when one of
these electronic devices caught on fire. For the most part,
the entire top of the aircraft knows the tail is gone.
Oh jeez, now that's from a lithium battery fire at
the gate. Thank god, it was at the gate and
it wasn't an aircraft that was in the in the air.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
And oh, I'm looking at it right down.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
When you see when you see that picture and you
know that we are knowingly being okay with bringing these
devices on and then please pray to God none of
these ever reached the cargo compartment. It just shows how
dangerous these things are, and it were. It's a situation
where we continue to say safety is are number one priority,
(13:53):
but we're gonna lie you bring these things on board.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And look, I.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Understand their phones. I understand that they're tableists. I understand
that they're things that people will not travel without. But
when you recognize the danger of these things represent and
how many times we talk about it, and there's almost
one a week somewhere in the world where these things
are happening, it's just it becomes more and more scary.
And I'm just hoping that we can reach the point where, yes,
(14:16):
we can have better onboard procedures for making sure that
we've got fire suppression bags and flight attendants are trained
now to be firefighters so that they can combat these
things so that it doesn't kill everybody on board a flight.
It's also the reason if one of these electronic devices
get stuck in a seat where nobody can reach it,
the crew will make an emergency land to get at
the nearest airport in case it starts to smolder and
(14:38):
catch fire. They can't reach it to put it out.
It's going to spread. And even though you have fire
resistant material throughout the cabin and it's designed that way,
you still have the very real possibility that these things
could be an issue. So it's one of those things
that you just wonder, you know, how long it's going
to be for somebody's going to get hurt with these things.
(14:59):
And these continue being one of the topics that we
are forced to talk about.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Well, you know, I've been in situations where you're not
allowed to have a cell phone. You put it in
one of those Faraday bags and you hold that with you,
and that doesn't seem like much of an ask when
you're talking about the massive loss of life that one
of these batteries can cause. You got a device, put
it in the Faraday bag or put it in the
flameproof bag and maybe if you're using it, at least
it'll be out and you'll be able to tell when
it's smoldering. Throw it right back in the bag. But
(15:26):
all things must be in a fire resistant bag unless
it's being actively used.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Maybe that'd work well anything.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
But you know, when you tell people that they can't
use their phone, it's like telling them they.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Need to wear a mask.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
It's gonna be tough because you know, somebody puts their
phone down, the next person next to them, Hey, you
need to put your and that's just you gonna have
all all this on board stuff as people try to
help police that type of situation.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yes, it may.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Be to your advance, to your comment, putting something in
the seatback pocket that we can put the phones into
in the event they start to overheat. But then who's
going to pay for those bags to be on the plane?
And airlines are going to do it? I mean, they're
incredibly cheap, They're absolutely not going to So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
It just seems like the airport preventative measures that might
save massive loss of life and ended up landing them
in a multi multi million dollar litigation. And it seems
to me put that little money up front, don't pay
it to the plane. If you who are dad put
on bags or something, that's.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Like putting it.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
It's like putting an EpiPen in the onboard medical kit,
which airlines do not do. So many times passengers have
had issues with allergies and they stop breathing, and thank god,
a passenger aboard a plane has an EpiPen that is
given to a medical professional that it's administered, because you know,
those EpiPens have a shelf life of what eighteen months
or something, I don't know, and airlines are not going to,
(16:45):
you know, spend that much money to put them.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
On an airplane.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, safety is are number one priority, right In't that
what they billion get written down here.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Somewhere billion dollars in one quarter, Jay Ratliff, billion dollars
in a quarter. All right, let's end on what I
think will be a more positive note than then the
wheels falling off airplanes in Orlando. What about this sleeper
row that's so hot again? Going back to Lufthansa, Yeah,
Lufana rolled something out.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
It was a couple of years ago, but it's really
starting to catch on. It's a sleeper road in essence,
when you're on a flight. This is the German carrier Luthonsa.
When you're in one of their flights it's eleven hours
or more and you're checking in, you can actually ask
the gate agent, look, I'd like to grab an entire
row to myself, so that you can pay for the
(17:30):
seats that maybe three or four across. You get them
at a discount, and you then have, you know, the
whole road to yourself. It comes with a thin mattress,
a blanket, a pillow. You can lay down a sleep
the whole time if you want. Because remember, airline seats
are perishable. Once the door closes, the airlines lose their revenue.
But look, the aircraft's only seventy five percent full. Let's
(17:51):
say fourth of those seats unsold. So airlines like, man,
what can we do to raise more money? And they're
really good at this and they say, well, let's just
sell the whole road to people. And that's what they've doing,
and it's really catching on now. I still laugh thinking
back of the days when the air you know, we
had fifty five percent load factors, and if you got
the whole road of yourself, you could lay down and
sleep without it costing you money. But now they found
(18:12):
a way to make even more and this is really
catching on. So for people that just want to work
and have extra room to put their stuff around, it's
working out well. And but for people that want to
lay down and sleep, they can do it. So that's
all Luthonsa. If you happen to be on a flight
of theirs, it's eleven hours.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Or more, eleven hours or more and probably comes at
a premium price.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Jay well, but not as much as it would cost
to sit in first class and have the lay down seats.
You're going to get a discount here, So that's how
they sell it. And you know, it's just it's nice.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I mean when you don't everybody's sitting next to.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You and you need work or you just want to rest,
or you don't want to get up when they have
to go to the down to the laboratory.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
That works great too, but.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
You know, yeah, something Look when Elizabeth Taylor used to fly,
she'd buy every seat in first class and just sit
up there by yourself.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So I guess it depends on what you want to do.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, well that's me makes Elizabeth Taylor sound like well,
I'm not even gonna say it out loud.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
We do have the FCC. We've been a very very
nice person.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Maybe yeah whatever, Elite exclusive don't want to be bothered
with the common people. Jay Ratliffe, love having you. That's
right him, and best of luck with your trading week.
My friend and I will look forward to having another
discussion with you next Thursday. Man. Best of health and
love to you and your better half.
If I'm KRZ the Talk station.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hey, twenty nine fifty have KRC the talk station. Very
Happy Friday Eve. You made extra special every Friday or
Friday Eve at this time anyway with iHeartMedia aviation expert
Jay Ratliffe, Jay, welcome back, my friend. It's always great
having you on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Oh the highlight of my day. Brother. Let's talk to you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
So kind of you to say, and I've been giving
thanks to everyone who's wished me well having the chemo treatments.
And actually your post on Facebook, I know you didn't
mention me specifically, but I knew darn well who you
were talking about since we talked about that brought a
tear to my eye. All the response. You have a
lot of people out in the prayer community answering the
challenge man, that I'll give credit to you and all
those others who you know prayed for me in my
(00:41):
in my good health, because I'm I'm pretty much firing
on all cylinders today after a few days of downtime.
So it's a small price to pay.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Was the six hour six hour treatment? Man, I tell
you that that that's got to be rough, and you've
been through stuff like this before, and it's you know,
I mean just I mean, how arrogant is it of
us every day wake up and just take the day
we've been given like it's it's owed to us, it's
it's deserved it. Yeah, I mean it's it's a daily gift.
(01:08):
And you just never know what's going to happen. So
many days, at the end of the day, I pray,
thank God, today wasn't the worst day of my life.
Thank God nothing happened where friends or family were suddenly
removed out of my life. I mean, you just just
when you look at life as just a daily gift
that I think allows us to let the small stuff
just kind of slide by without us getting too worked.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Up over it.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Beautiful philosophy, man, beautiful all right, I tell you what
I'm gonna do. I'm not throwing a real curve ball
at you, but I am going to change the order
of things. Given we've got Snowmageddon coming in, and assuming
that we do get Snowmageddon, I'm not asking you to
predict exactly where the hub delays will be, but it
sounds to me like we're going to have some travel
challenges going over the weekend.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Jay I can do pretty good with that.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I mean, we know that this massive storm is set
to create a weekend to havoc across the country, and
we're already seeing airlines adjust their flights schedules accordingly. We're
looking at twenty hours of freezing rain in Dallas and
that's going to impact American Airlines hub that's there, so
we're seeing some big issues there. The mess is expected
in Houston and that's a United hub, so we're seeing
(02:13):
both of these airlines cancel flights in advance. And as
this storm spreads across the country, you know, through US
from Memphis through US towards the northeast, we're looking at
tens of thousands of flights that are going to be
going to be impacted as well. Airlines have issued a
weather waiver that's for any passenger that's traveling to or
through any of these affected areas. If you want to
(02:34):
change your itinerary to travel at a different time, you
can do so absent a change fee. And I think
it's going to be so bad that it's actually going
to be something that's going to spill into Monday morning
because it's going to be a weekend event, and that's
going to prevent some aircraft from reaching their final destination
on Sunday night. That makes up the Monday morning originators.
(02:55):
So it is going to be again just wall to
wall have with everything that's going to be going on.
And if it's just snow, I mean, airlines can operate
in snow, they just do it more slowly. But when
you're talking about three, four or five inches of ice
and those types of things, airlines are going to cancel
the flight because you're not gonna put an aircraft that
could a go off a runway, off of a taxiway,
(03:18):
not be able to be under a complete control on
the tarmac. Those kinds of things can really create a
safety issue. Plus it venience for passengers.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, well plus lift the wings. Once does the ice,
you're good to go.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And but yeah, the whole point is that airlines see
this storm coming and look, I'm just glad it wasn't
a month ago. Can you imagine, you know, December twenty third,
twenty fourth, we're talking about this kind of storm, So
thankfully it was now. But airlines do a horrible job
at customer service. But I always have to give them
high marks when it comes to irregular operations. And weather
(03:55):
related events. They're they're going to make sure that, look,
if we need to cancel this flight, let's do it
so we can notify people at home so that you know,
they don't get to fight to get to the airport
only to find out the flight's been canceled. And sometimes
it's just a matter of an online reroute. You might
be flying American Airlines through Dallas and it's going to
be a mess, and they may say, well, Chicago's going
to be less of a mess. Let us route you
(04:16):
through there because January is not known as a busy,
heavy travel month, so as a result, they might have
some options. So you know, American Airlines just rolled out
this new app that if your itinerary is impacted by
any sort of irregular operation, they send you a link.
You click on it and they give you a bunch
of options as far as what you want to do.
Take this light, this light or that flight cancel or
(04:38):
if you need to spend the night, here's something to
click on to get your hotel voucher. Oh you need
transportation vouchers here it is click on that. It's immediate,
and it's just great use of their new It's kind
of an AI type of thing. But it's great that
Americans putting that power in the palm of people's hands,
because in a storm like this, I'm telling you it's
going to come in handy.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Well, we're almost out of time. Let's go ahead and
call it early this time because it sounds cool, but
it sounds like a really really bad idea to me.
Flying cars getting ready to launch, and apparently ozempic is
saving the airlines millions or will be anyway more. With
Iheartmediaviation Expert, Jay Ratlifts Stickgram fifty five, KRC dot com,
you're one stop for advertising.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
But KRC Deep Talk station. Have you ever been in
a cockpit before?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Well, of course, j Ratlift has I Heart Mediaviation Expert.
We get them every Thursday a few segments talk aviation
realities and this now I Initially my reaction is oh cool.
I've been reading about this my entire life. It looks
like flying cars, especially at the low low price of
forty thousand dollars, are getting ready to be delivered, maybe
as early as the second quarter of this year by
(05:45):
this new tech company. But you don't have to be
a pilot to fly one. And we're bad enough out
on the roads where we have speed limits and and
lane signs and markers and stop signs. What in the
hell is the world going to look like if every
time Dick and Harry has a flying car in their driveway, Jay.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I mean, this is the Richter X four.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
The Richter X four has a list price of thirty
nine nine dollars. That's what they're saying is gonna be
rolled out. It's a single passenger electric vertical takeoff and
landing aircraft could used as a car. It's designed to
make short range personal flights more accessible, and they're saying
more affordable. And the essence is the top speed of
this bad boy's fifty miles an hour, so you don't
(06:31):
have to worry about any top gun maneuvers. Maximum flight
time with your electric battery.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeh.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
The payload capacity two hundred and twenty pounds, nothing more
than that. And again, as you mentioned, experimental aircraft, meaning
the FAA says no pilot license is required. And that's
where the fun or tear begins, depending on how you
want to look at it, because I mean, we see
road grade every day. I can't imagine. I mean, it's
just I don't see this happening for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
What I do see happening is something that the technology
is very very close, and that's these air taxis or
air ubers, where you have a vehicle that lands in
your driveway, you climb in, it's a pre programmed off off,
it flies you to your destination and lands. It's a
short range type of thing, but that way, it's pre
programmed a specific flightpath. Nothing is going to be directing
(07:25):
it into power lines, buildings, another vehicle or anything along
those lines. And you know that's where things are I
think headed.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
You know, I'm still waiting for Amazon to deliver my
pizza to the driveway with a drone, So we're not
there yet. So I suspect it's gonna be wild for
these air taxis, but find there's several steps that we're
moving into that direction, and eventually that's going to be
the case. Airlines like Delta United American they have spent
just a trum hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars
investing in this technology for these air uber type things
(07:57):
because they see those as things that will feed their
hubs in places like New York and Dallas and Houston
to bring people from areas around the airport straight to
the airport where you don't have to mess with the
hassle of parking and all the traffic.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well, I can only see this resulting in immediate legislation
to the extent these things become readily available. There's no
way they're going to let us just fly around without
some kind of rules and regulations and licensing. We'll wait
popcorns out.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Imagine I'm plying to like a Bengals game, and then
the state of people after the game when they're trying
to fly those.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
No, thank you, especially after a tailgate party.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Exactly my thought.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
All right, moving over, I thought this was comical. I
didn't read the article. I just saw your headline. Weight
loss drugs could actually save airlines five and eighty dollars
a year, A little side benefit from the ozempic class drugs.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I guess that's exactly it.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
There was a study that was put out by Jeffries,
They're a financial services firm, and said, look, the four
largest airlines American, Delta, Southwest, United could save collectively that
five hundred and eighty million or more on fuel thanks
to those drug related things that are going going crazy
right now. And they're saying less fuel means lighter passengers,
(09:18):
which means the airlines can use less fuel to get
the planes to their destination and they can make.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Even more money.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Now, the fun part would be if they were going
to reward us for losing that weight by lowering our fares,
but we both.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Know that's not going to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
United and Delta just now, they recently both reported their
quarterly profit of more than a billion dollars in a quarter.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Now, I mean, when.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
You think about the history of aviation, the idea of
a making any money in a year was unbelievable. If
you made a billion in a year, it was historic.
And now they're rolling these things out quarterly because the
credit card stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You and I've talked about before.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
But remember, no airline would have made any money in
twenty twenty four absent of their credit card agreement. So
when you see the airlines are making that and now
an extra five hundred and eighty million dollars collectively on
top because we're losing weight, just doesn't seem fair.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I guess the one benefit to the consumer the larger
among us won't have to buy two seats anymore if
they stick with the ozempeic and lose the weight, well.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yea, And airlines continue to kind of amend their plus
size passenger policy, becoming a little bit more hard to
work with. And you know, the airline seats keep getting smaller.
And that's the other thing with weight and balance on
an aircraft. As soon as somebody comes out with a
seat as FAA approved crash resistant and all the things
we have to have that's lighter than what's being used,
(10:47):
airlines are going to use it. Oh yeah, it may
be a whole lot less comfortable, but you know, if
you're only on the plane two three four hours, what's
the big deal.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It's better than a.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
You know, perhaps a wooden pew at church or a
bus seat, So why not let's throw them in there?
So you know, waiting, balance is everything on this stuff,
and I don't know. We'll see where all of it goes.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We will, And coming up the next segment, we'll learn
if Loofkanza's new rules regarding lithium battery are good and
if we will learn something from those those things freak
me out, Jay Ratliff anymore, after all your stories on
those lithium batteries, got more other I've got a lot
of other stories to talk about it. I don't think
we're going to get through all of them. We'll give
it our best. One more with Jay Ratliffs stick around
(11:27):
fifty five the talk station caresee the talk station Happy Friday,
Eve Tomorrow Tech Friday with Dave hat Or Jack Windsor
returns as well. And in the meantime, I heart me
the aviation expert Jay Ratliffe BLUs to have them for
a full three segments on a Thursday. And what's with
looft Tonza? They are dealing with the whole concept of
lithium battery powered devices, which you have brought to my
(11:50):
attention more than one occasion, freaking me out. Those things
catch on fire. We all know about that, but oh lo,
and behold, what if someone stowed one away in a
baggage compartment down below the plane? You got a problem
on that when they're not supposed to go there. So
how did luftons there is? How is Luftonso approaching this
new rule?
Speaker 3 (12:08):
When you look at some of the YouTube videos and
things that are out there that show how fast these
electronic lithium power devices smolder, and ignite. I mean it's
almost instantaneous. So Luthon's is saying, for those passengers that
are bringing the power pack devices onto their plane that
you use to charge your devices, One, you can't bring
(12:29):
any more than two. The second thing is you cannot
use them during the course of the flight. Three they
are not to go into the overhead storage compartment. They're
to be under your seat or in the seat pocket
in front of you. The reason for that is they
want them to be visually there so that if they
start to smolder, the passenger will know about it immediately,
(12:50):
they can notify the flight attendant. If it's in the
overhead storage compartment, it could smolder for a period of
time and it actually catch fire before anybody's aware of
what's going on. So that's what sluthonza, which is copying
a lot of what other airlines have been doing. And Brian,
all you've got to do is is google the image
of air Boossan that's b U S A M. And
(13:10):
you can see what's left of an airplane that was
at the gate when they were boarding when one of
these electronic devices caught on fire. For the most part,
the entire top of the aircraft knows the tail is gone.
Oh jeez, now that's from a lithium battery fire at
the gate. Thank god, it was at the gate and
it wasn't an aircraft that was in the in the air.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
And oh, I'm looking at it right down.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
When you see when you see that picture and you
know that we are knowingly being okay with bringing these
devices on and then please pray to God none of
these ever reached the cargo compartment. It just shows how
dangerous these things are, and it were. It's a situation
where we continue to say safety is are number one priority,
(13:53):
but we're gonna lie you bring these things on board.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And look, I.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Understand their phones. I understand that they're tableists. I understand
that they're things that people will not travel without. But
when you recognize the danger of these things represent and
how many times we talk about it, and there's almost
one a week somewhere in the world where these things
are happening, it's just it becomes more and more scary.
And I'm just hoping that we can reach the point where, yes,
(14:16):
we can have better onboard procedures for making sure that
we've got fire suppression bags and flight attendants are trained
now to be firefighters so that they can combat these
things so that it doesn't kill everybody on board a flight.
It's also the reason if one of these electronic devices
get stuck in a seat where nobody can reach it,
the crew will make an emergency land to get at
the nearest airport in case it starts to smolder and
(14:38):
catch fire. They can't reach it to put it out.
It's going to spread. And even though you have fire
resistant material throughout the cabin and it's designed that way,
you still have the very real possibility that these things
could be an issue. So it's one of those things
that you just wonder, you know, how long it's going
to be for somebody's going to get hurt with these things.
(14:59):
And these continue being one of the topics that we
are forced to talk about.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Well, you know, I've been in situations where you're not
allowed to have a cell phone. You put it in
one of those Faraday bags and you hold that with you,
and that doesn't seem like much of an ask when
you're talking about the massive loss of life that one
of these batteries can cause. You got a device, put
it in the Faraday bag or put it in the
flameproof bag and maybe if you're using it, at least
it'll be out and you'll be able to tell when
it's smoldering. Throw it right back in the bag. But
(15:26):
all things must be in a fire resistant bag unless
it's being actively used.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Maybe that'd work well anything.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
But you know, when you tell people that they can't
use their phone, it's like telling them they.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Need to wear a mask.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
It's gonna be tough because you know, somebody puts their
phone down, the next person next to them, Hey, you
need to put your and that's just you gonna have
all all this on board stuff as people try to
help police that type of situation.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yes, it may.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Be to your advance, to your comment, putting something in
the seatback pocket that we can put the phones into
in the event they start to overheat. But then who's
going to pay for those bags to be on the plane?
And airlines are going to do it? I mean, they're
incredibly cheap, They're absolutely not going to So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
It just seems like the airport preventative measures that might
save massive loss of life and ended up landing them
in a multi multi million dollar litigation. And it seems
to me put that little money up front, don't pay
it to the plane. If you who are dad put
on bags or something, that's.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Like putting it.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
It's like putting an EpiPen in the onboard medical kit,
which airlines do not do. So many times passengers have
had issues with allergies and they stop breathing, and thank god,
a passenger aboard a plane has an EpiPen that is
given to a medical professional that it's administered, because you know,
those EpiPens have a shelf life of what eighteen months
or something, I don't know, and airlines are not going to,
(16:45):
you know, spend that much money to put them.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
On an airplane.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, safety is are number one priority, right In't that
what they billion get written down here.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Somewhere billion dollars in one quarter, Jay Ratliff, billion dollars
in a quarter. All right, let's end on what I
think will be a more positive note than then the
wheels falling off airplanes in Orlando. What about this sleeper
row that's so hot again? Going back to Lufthansa, Yeah,
Lufana rolled something out.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
It was a couple of years ago, but it's really
starting to catch on. It's a sleeper road in essence,
when you're on a flight. This is the German carrier Luthonsa.
When you're in one of their flights it's eleven hours
or more and you're checking in, you can actually ask
the gate agent, look, I'd like to grab an entire
row to myself, so that you can pay for the
(17:30):
seats that maybe three or four across. You get them
at a discount, and you then have, you know, the
whole road to yourself. It comes with a thin mattress,
a blanket, a pillow. You can lay down a sleep
the whole time if you want. Because remember, airline seats
are perishable. Once the door closes, the airlines lose their revenue.
But look, the aircraft's only seventy five percent full. Let's
(17:51):
say fourth of those seats unsold. So airlines like, man,
what can we do to raise more money? And they're
really good at this and they say, well, let's just
sell the whole road to people. And that's what they've doing,
and it's really catching on now. I still laugh thinking
back of the days when the air you know, we
had fifty five percent load factors, and if you got
the whole road of yourself, you could lay down and
sleep without it costing you money. But now they found
(18:12):
a way to make even more and this is really
catching on. So for people that just want to work
and have extra room to put their stuff around, it's
working out well. And but for people that want to
lay down and sleep, they can do it. So that's
all Luthonsa. If you happen to be on a flight
of theirs, it's eleven hours.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Or more, eleven hours or more and probably comes at
a premium price.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Jay well, but not as much as it would cost
to sit in first class and have the lay down seats.
You're going to get a discount here, So that's how
they sell it. And you know, it's just it's nice.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I mean when you don't everybody's sitting next to.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You and you need work or you just want to rest,
or you don't want to get up when they have
to go to the down to the laboratory.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
That works great too, but.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
You know, yeah, something Look when Elizabeth Taylor used to fly,
she'd buy every seat in first class and just sit
up there by yourself.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So I guess it depends on what you want to do.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, well that's me makes Elizabeth Taylor sound like well,
I'm not even gonna say it out loud.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
We do have the FCC. We've been a very very
nice person.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Maybe yeah whatever, Elite exclusive don't want to be bothered
with the common people. Jay Ratliffe, love having you. That's
right him, and best of luck with your trading week.
My friend and I will look forward to having another
discussion with you next Thursday. Man. Best of health and
love to you and your better half.
Brian Thomas News
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