May 7, 2026 • 19 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ever see the talk station Hey thirty on a Thursday,
It is that time. I always look forward to this.
Talking with Jay ratl is always an enjoyable experience, regardless
of what you're talking about with him, but on this
show it is almost always focused on aviation because he
is iHeartMedia's aviation expert. Welcome back, my friend, Jay. It's
(00:20):
always great having you on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Plus your morning, and it was good to hear Joe's
voice this morning as well, I.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Know and reminded my listen. I want to thank everyone
for the prayers they sent out to Joe. He got
a clean bill of health after a little medical emergency
scare yesterday and it frightened the crap out of me.
Jay rat left because you know about Joe, Man, it
just does not work without Joe, in spite of the
fact that Danny did a really good job. I don't
want to discount the Danny's after now, Joe's the machine
that makes things work around here. So that's the challenge
(00:46):
show prayers work.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
No.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Latest on the United Airline flight to hit a truck.
This was the in Newark, right.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
It was. It was on final approach coming in from
Italy and as it came down, it hit light pole
and then impacted apparently a bakery truck that was just
mining its own business, tooling down the expressway there in
New Jersey. Now, the video that was inside the cab
of the truck, the video that they had was horrific. Thankfully,
(01:18):
we knew the drivers survived because you actually hear the
airplane coming in and you hear louder, louder, louder, and
then you see the tire out of his left window
and then the camera goes static. So immediately we had
everybody from Sean Duffy to others talking about pot pilot
(01:39):
air and other types of things, and I was just
like time out here.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
No no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
We got the National Transportation Safety Board that's coming in
to do their usual outstanding all star effort. And it
could be pilot air. We don't know that. There could
have been some computer issues on the flight deck that
was providing faulty, faulty data to the crew. There could
have been a mechanical issue at play.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Now, hey, Jay, it could have been a software upgrade.
They didn't bother telling the pilots about that. I'm bumped.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, let's hope not right, So, but you know, and
you know this, the light pole hit a jeep and
then the plane apparently hit the truck. And I have
a lot of people that are saying, oh, you know,
he's set for life, and I'm thinking I've been around
people that have been one of the few or only
survivors of a plane crash, and when you talk with
(02:31):
them and you see what they go through, I'm sorry,
no amount of money in the world with some of
this serious PTSD that people have to suffer through for
the rest of their life, is worth it. And sometimes
I grow really tired of people that are looking for
a quick payday at any expense. And this poor guy
you talk about praying for him, I mean he may
(02:51):
be okay, you know, physically eventually, but mentally, I mean,
you just hear that that engine coming down on top
of you, that's what you were hearing. That video is
just again, just absolutely horrific. But I am very confident
that the NTSB will find out exactly what took place.
They'll give us a preliminary report thirty days after and
(03:12):
the final report eight to ten, maybe twelve months from now,
and they'll outline exactly what happened. We'll learn and we'll
make commercial aviation safer as we're also result thankfully, everybody
on the plane safe before a guy on the truck safe,
and everybody else on the interest. I mean, can imagine
being the car behind the truck.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh lord, I seeing it happen. I mean anywhere in
the area, Jay, And of course compensation won't cover his pts,
but it will at least reimburse them for the shorts
that he ruined.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well, and you've been around people that have had to
go through these things where you know they've had this
sue for damages in this regard and it's not a
big party that everybody else thinks it is. So again,
I just I'm just praying he's going to be okay
because that looked like a young guy. But you know
it's any luck. He's scared to fly, so that's why
(04:01):
he just drives right. Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
That'll come back with well, yeah, that's the other element
of damages. Not only you have post traumatic stress if
many can't pay you for, but you probably will never
get on an airplane again because look what can happen.
You scare the hell out of me every week on
this program, Jay Ratliff and I've never been a real
big fan of flying. Anyway, we'll bring Jay back. We'll
talk about some actually some really nice gestures in the
airline community, about Spirit Airlines employees losing their job and sorry,
(04:30):
distance means service sucks to beu if you're on a
short flight, apparently on Delta More with Jay Ratliffe coming
up fifty five KRC, Hey get me talls station. Have
you ever been in a cockpit before? Hey? Thirty eight?
If about their CD talk station? Jay Ratliff, has he?
I heard me the aviation expert. We are enjoying the
pleasure of Jay every Thursday, beginning at A thirty through
(04:50):
the end of the show, which I dearly love. Pivoting
over here before we get to Spirit Airlines, I I
saw your note here. British air Wise Airways is paying
pilots one hundred thousand dollars a year to not fly.
How can we get a light Joe Drecker wants to
apply for that job.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well, you have to be qualified to not fly. And
let me explain why they have flights coming into Chicago's
Ohare Airport where you're coming in from, let's say London, Heathrow.
You're landing at Chicago, you go to the international arrival terminal,
your gate, you're dropping passengers off. The passengers have to
get off the bags and prey to have to get off.
(05:29):
You've got the aircraft inspection that takes place, and then
once Customs is finished with you, that crew then taxis
the airplane back over to the other side of the
field where it's needed for the next flight. Now, the
delay and the time you arrive in the time everything
gets off the plane and the inspections are dumb to
the time you're able to slowly taxi that aircraft all
(05:51):
the way over to the outside the airport where it
needs to go is considerable. Sometimes it can be several
hours in duration. A lot of these pilots are timing
out because are on continuous duty once they land and
the clock is running. So British Airway says, wouldn't it
be better if we positioned pilots at O'Hare simply to
taxi that aircraft once it's finished from the international arrival
(06:14):
point over to where we need it for the next time.
They did the math and said, this is going to
be good for customers. It's going to be good for
the pilots. One hundred thousand dollars sounds like a lot.
Well one year in Chicago, you live there, you know what.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not it sounds like pilots.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Who actually leave the ground get a lot more money
than that. But you know, for somebody that wants to
be home every day that you know, you know, just
you know what, you know, it's there, So it's but
what a fun headline is though to see that, or
you know, maybe they could use that as kind of
the Siberia joke. You know, you mess up on the
(06:51):
line and we're going to put you on the ground
taxing airplanes at Chicago. Instead of making two hundred and
eighty thousand a year, you'll be making one hundred thousand
a year. But uh yeah, most pilots want to fly,
But for those that want to stay on the ground
in taxi, yeah they can do it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Well, it's couldn't there be sort of a sub license
for that. You're not taking off, you're not landing, So
maybe we just have like a truck driver's certifications, which
allows you to move an aircraft while it's still on
the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
You can have fact, there's several maintenance people that are
qualified to taxi in aircraft, so you could go that route,
but again you're still talking about somebody that gets paid
a great deal of money to work on planes, get
them back in service and things of this nature, versus
here you're paying somebody to patiently taxi at a very
very slow speed that aircraft over to the other side
(07:39):
of the airport. So they feel like the pilots are
the best way to go about that. And yeah, it's
gonna be interesting to see if this experiment works for him,
because Brian, if it does, they're going to end up
using this same sort of a system at some of
their other international airports around the world. So it's gonna
be interesting to see. And I've rarely seen anyone do that.
(08:01):
I was going to ask, with your permission, to pivot
from this story to another one that we had.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
The one who says eighteen thousand flights have been canceled.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
No, I was going to actually go to a hero
on a flight. There was a Jet two flight. This
is a flight from Turkey to England that was delayed
for more than an hour. Once it was airborne, one
of the passengers decided to drink some alcohol she brought
on board the flight definitely against the rules. She was confronted.
She starts making a just a ruck as she starts screaming,
(08:31):
the crew preparing for an emergency landing so they can
offload this problem. And that's when a fellow passenger came
to the rescue, actually came over started talking to the
woman in a very calm voice. Brian. She actually calmed
down and the flight was able to continue without an
unscheduled stop. Now needless to save this passenger was the
plane's hero. But he was also eight years old, so wow,
(08:55):
what a great story. His name is Phoenix, which I
think is a cool aviation name, and he and his
father once they finally got home, they started being showered
with gifts from the airline, passengers and people around the
world that have heard the story. No idea says how
they got our address, But my son is continuing to
get gifts from all over the world. But an eight
(09:16):
year old came to the rescue.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That is amazing. Maybe we need more eight year olds
out of the world to de escalate these crazy people
we deal with day and day.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, don't be a Karen, be a Phoenix. I think
that's a very good thought of the day.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Need a T shirt for that with that aud it.
And just speaking of Chicago, I saw United Airlines is
cutting a lot of flights. Is eighteen thousand is this
from Chicago?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Hair only only eighteen thy two hundred to be exact,
And Brian, when you see they're cutting that from their
schedule in June, July, and August, that's when you're adding flights.
That's when you're adding service. That's when nobody goes on
vacation because the demand is high, the profit is high,
the fares are high. You want as many of those
silver revenue tubes rolling as you can get. And for
(10:01):
them to come in and say, we're going to have
to because of the cost of fuel that's increased and
the challenge is associated with that, we've got to cut
eighteen two hundred flights. We're seeing airlines around the world
do this and the last thing they want to do
is do this in the summer. But you have some
markets that you operate that the profit is minimal, but
(10:22):
it's still a profit. But when you are starting to
pay fifty sixty to seventy percent more in fuel, that
minor profit now becomes a loss. And some airlines are saying,
I'm not going to run this route. I'm going to
take that airplane to another route where our profit or
yield for passengers higher and do that. So they've been
moving things all over the place, trying to adjust on
the fly as they can. And yeah, it's not impacting
(10:45):
the United Chicago, but Delta's canceling flights. We're seeing Americans
do the same Southwest. Even the low cost carriers are
doing what they can to adjust as they need to
because again, they don't have many of these in the
United States, don't have hedge contracts where you've locked in
the price of fuel for an extended period of time. Now,
this practice of hedging is used to be something here
(11:08):
that airlines did all the time until we rolled into
the pandemic and then it just burned too many carriers
and they never did it again. Hedging is fuel hedging
is popular still in Europe. A lot of the low
cost carriers there do it, and they are really benefiting
right now from the idea of being locked in for
some time at a predetermined price of fuel that was
(11:29):
no negotiated before all this happened. And yeah, they're able
to weather this storm much much easier and making money
along the way.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
By cutting eighteen thousand flights on just as several months.
One airline that certainly speaks volumes about the volume of
flights in and out of Chicago, though, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Well yeah, well, well American in United had I think
eighty percent of the flights between them. But you know,
you're talking about eighteen thousand flights. You're talking three million seats.
So when you're talking about revenue from three million seats,
it adds up, and it's going to impact the United's
bottom line for sure. It's gonna impact every airline's bottom
(12:09):
line obviously. And I tell you this is not a
summer thing. We're seeing this even if things started resuming,
it's you know, it's gonna take a while to get
that flow going where the fuel can start to drop
and cost for aviation needs. And this could be a
you know, summer, fall, even winter thing. So it's gonna
be interesting to see where it goes.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Well, real briefly, since we're at a time of the segment.
You being the trader guy that you are a daytrade
fund dot com, I know you don't trade in long
term stocks, but has this already impacted the airline stock prices. This.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, we've seen some overreactions in some things, and obviously
certain people becoming a little bit more concerned. Most people
are looking at it as a temporary problem. So if
you're buying shares of whatever airline you're keep, you're continuing
to do that. You're just doing it at lower prices
in some regards. But look, the bottom line is they're
not most most people in the world, including Wall Street,
(13:01):
because yesterday, you know, we hit fifty thousand on the Dow.
It was. It's not looked at something that's going to
be a forever type problem. And let's things escalate and
as things continue, hopefully to calm down in that part
of the world, hopefully the fuel prices will start to
drop a bit as well. I feel for the truck drivers,
those independent owners and operators that I mean, good Lord,
(13:23):
sixty bucks a gallon or whatever.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, and rising and rising more with I Art mediavs.
Expert Jay rattlefts some interesting story spirit as well as
wait a second American and merging with United? Can that happen?
Don't go away? At you right back? Fifty five nine
fifty five kers the talk station Round Times with Jay
ratleft my heart. Media aviation expert am I reading this correctly,
American and United might merge.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Well, it was floated out weeks ago by United CEO
Jeff Scott Kirby, and Kirby said that yeah, he wouldn't
it be interesting if United, you and American got together
and merge, and of course set off kind of a
media firestorm that went everywhere. American quickly came out and said, look,
we're not interested, no thank you, and the it was
(14:08):
pretty well a done deal where it was kind of like, Okay,
that's parked, but we've got the pilots for American Airlines
that are come out saying wait a minute, time out.
Not a bad idea that this could actually work. So
I've been speculating for the last couple of weeks that
it's easy for American Airlines to say no thank you,
but American Airlines is not making but maybe twenty five
(14:30):
percent of the profit that United is.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
That answers the question. I literally just looked at the
stock price United is trading at one hundred and American
Airlines is a thirteen dollars stock.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
You've got it, and it's there for a reason. In
both cases. So you've got shareholders that are like, hey,
I like the United price of stock a lot better
than here. They're doing a lot of things, right, they
reported quarters of profit a billion with a B dollars
and more, and American, you know, a couple hundred million
(15:00):
if they can make that happen. So the pilots are
saying it may not be a bad idea. And then
you've got shareholders. I guarantee you there's some internal pressure
now that that's been floated out there is hey, this
might not be a bad idea. So the more that
people say there's nothing to see here, a dead story,
I'm like, yeah, right, it may come to pass. Now,
(15:23):
if American and merger American in United went skipping down
the road in a merger attempt, what would the Trump
administration do? Now? Keep in mind, this is the same
administration that has been blasting the Biden administration for not
allowing Jet Blue and Spirit to merge. I'm glad that
(15:45):
merger didn't go through, by the way, because it wasn't
good for consumers. But the bottom line is, I think
of American and United went forward with this, the Trump
administration would allow it. I don't think it would be
a good idea because it would give them collectively some
percent of the you know, the Chicago O'Hare presidence. They
would own it, and you would see so few levels
(16:09):
of competition, a lot of different markets for your seats,
higher fares. It would not be good for consumers, but
that's not saying it wouldn't be allowed.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Fair enough on that one. And since you mentioned Spirit,
some love being shown by the airline folks out there
for the employees lost their jobs at Spirit Airlines.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
We're seeing so many stories, so many pictures. There's a
picture on a Frontier flight of some Spirit people that
were flying home. I don't know if they were crew
members or employees, and you see the Frontier flight attendants
standing around and praying over them, and it was just
such a I mean it. And you've got Jet Blue
that's coming out saying, look, if for all of the
Spirit passengers that are stranded, we're gonna give you a
(16:48):
ninety some dollars fare to get home. So just prove
to us, show us your copy of your itinerary on
Spirit will give you these discount of tickets to get
you home. You've got other airlines that are set up
up preferential employment screening if somebody wants to apply for
a job. So you've got all of this stuff that's
happening in an industry where it's coming together, and Brian,
(17:10):
I tell you, it really warms my heart to see because
you know, yes, we have thousands of stranded passengers, absolutely,
and airlines are doing what they can to assist those
people to in essence, airlift them out of where they're
at to get them home. But you also have seventeen
thousand current employees, many of which who already agreed to
take a pay cut to try to help their airlines
stick around. And you know, they did everything they could,
(17:34):
but you know, the clock simply ran out. They were
just a victim of a lot of unfirfortunate circumstances. I
think you remember you and I talking that they had
twenty percent of their fleet spirit did before the pandemic
that was parked. They couldn't use it because they had
Pratt and Whitney engines that had problems, and Pratt and
Whitney couldn't figure it out, so they could not use
twenty percent of their fleet. Pandemic hits. Obviously, all the
(17:58):
wheels come off of everything there we come out of it.
The demand for travel is a little bit sluggish. Everybody
gets up and rolling full steams to an extent, and
then we have this fuel situation hit. So it's been
one bad thing after another, which is why Spirit had
to file bankruptcy twice in seventeen months. But you know,
as a community, people are coming together and I'm really
glad to see it.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, you know, you look at that whole COVID thing
with a twenty twenty perspective, you think, Wow, how much
industry and business was destroyed as a consequence of our
overreaction and COVID. Wouldn't we be able to do it
over again? How much different it would be?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
You really, you think so?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I mean, I want to say I would love to think,
Rah if anything, that trip taught me that this group
would do the exact same thing. I mean, people would
just shut down and look for somebody to take care
of them.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I know. That's the frightening reality of the world these days.
Oh my god, the government's going away? What anyhow? Jay
rattl If you always end on hub delays, what's going
on with air travel out there right now?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Head morning issues Charlotte in Atlanta. Bad news, good news
that weather's getting out of the way. And yesterday was
a mess, but this isn't yesterday. Today it looks pretty good.
Uh and Lanta and Charlotte could still see some minor
delayed dimper maybe a few. All in all, it should
be a pretty good day to fly today, and hopefully
the conditions will only improve as the day progresses.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Jay Ratlife will be looking patiently waiting for your report
about how much money you made while we were talking
this morning, Jay Ratliffe, I love only.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Three hundred dollars. It was a it was a slow
I got to pay attention to us, not you know,
not the other stuff going on there.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Enough, Hey, you made more money. It's twenty five minutes
than must people make working a full day or a week,
Jay Ratliff, we'll talk next Thursday. Best of health and
loved you and your better half, my friend eight fifty
five right now
Ever see the talk station Hey thirty on a Thursday,
It is that time. I always look forward to this.
Talking with Jay ratl is always an enjoyable experience, regardless
of what you're talking about with him, but on this
show it is almost always focused on aviation because he
is iHeartMedia's aviation expert. Welcome back, my friend, Jay. It's
(00:20):
always great having you on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Plus your morning, and it was good to hear Joe's
voice this morning as well, I.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Know and reminded my listen. I want to thank everyone
for the prayers they sent out to Joe. He got
a clean bill of health after a little medical emergency
scare yesterday and it frightened the crap out of me.
Jay rat left because you know about Joe, Man, it
just does not work without Joe, in spite of the
fact that Danny did a really good job. I don't
want to discount the Danny's after now, Joe's the machine
that makes things work around here. So that's the challenge
(00:46):
show prayers work.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
No.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Latest on the United Airline flight to hit a truck.
This was the in Newark, right.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
It was. It was on final approach coming in from
Italy and as it came down, it hit light pole
and then impacted apparently a bakery truck that was just
mining its own business, tooling down the expressway there in
New Jersey. Now, the video that was inside the cab
of the truck, the video that they had was horrific. Thankfully,
(01:18):
we knew the drivers survived because you actually hear the
airplane coming in and you hear louder, louder, louder, and
then you see the tire out of his left window
and then the camera goes static. So immediately we had
everybody from Sean Duffy to others talking about pot pilot
(01:39):
air and other types of things, and I was just
like time out here.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
No no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
We got the National Transportation Safety Board that's coming in
to do their usual outstanding all star effort. And it
could be pilot air. We don't know that. There could
have been some computer issues on the flight deck that
was providing faulty, faulty data to the crew. There could
have been a mechanical issue at play.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Now, hey, Jay, it could have been a software upgrade.
They didn't bother telling the pilots about that. I'm bumped.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, let's hope not right, So, but you know, and
you know this, the light pole hit a jeep and
then the plane apparently hit the truck. And I have
a lot of people that are saying, oh, you know,
he's set for life, and I'm thinking I've been around
people that have been one of the few or only
survivors of a plane crash, and when you talk with
(02:31):
them and you see what they go through, I'm sorry,
no amount of money in the world with some of
this serious PTSD that people have to suffer through for
the rest of their life, is worth it. And sometimes
I grow really tired of people that are looking for
a quick payday at any expense. And this poor guy
you talk about praying for him, I mean he may
(02:51):
be okay, you know, physically eventually, but mentally, I mean,
you just hear that that engine coming down on top
of you, that's what you were hearing. That video is
just again, just absolutely horrific. But I am very confident
that the NTSB will find out exactly what took place.
They'll give us a preliminary report thirty days after and
(03:12):
the final report eight to ten, maybe twelve months from now,
and they'll outline exactly what happened. We'll learn and we'll
make commercial aviation safer as we're also result thankfully, everybody
on the plane safe before a guy on the truck safe,
and everybody else on the interest. I mean, can imagine
being the car behind the truck.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh lord, I seeing it happen. I mean anywhere in
the area, Jay, And of course compensation won't cover his pts,
but it will at least reimburse them for the shorts
that he ruined.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well, and you've been around people that have had to
go through these things where you know they've had this
sue for damages in this regard and it's not a
big party that everybody else thinks it is. So again,
I just I'm just praying he's going to be okay
because that looked like a young guy. But you know
it's any luck. He's scared to fly, so that's why
(04:01):
he just drives right. Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
That'll come back with well, yeah, that's the other element
of damages. Not only you have post traumatic stress if
many can't pay you for, but you probably will never
get on an airplane again because look what can happen.
You scare the hell out of me every week on
this program, Jay Ratliff and I've never been a real
big fan of flying. Anyway, we'll bring Jay back. We'll
talk about some actually some really nice gestures in the
airline community, about Spirit Airlines employees losing their job and sorry,
(04:30):
distance means service sucks to beu if you're on a
short flight, apparently on Delta More with Jay Ratliffe coming
up fifty five KRC, Hey get me talls station. Have
you ever been in a cockpit before? Hey? Thirty eight?
If about their CD talk station? Jay Ratliff, has he?
I heard me the aviation expert. We are enjoying the
pleasure of Jay every Thursday, beginning at A thirty through
(04:50):
the end of the show, which I dearly love. Pivoting
over here before we get to Spirit Airlines, I I
saw your note here. British air Wise Airways is paying
pilots one hundred thousand dollars a year to not fly.
How can we get a light Joe Drecker wants to
apply for that job.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well, you have to be qualified to not fly. And
let me explain why they have flights coming into Chicago's
Ohare Airport where you're coming in from, let's say London, Heathrow.
You're landing at Chicago, you go to the international arrival terminal,
your gate, you're dropping passengers off. The passengers have to
get off the bags and prey to have to get off.
(05:29):
You've got the aircraft inspection that takes place, and then
once Customs is finished with you, that crew then taxis
the airplane back over to the other side of the
field where it's needed for the next flight. Now, the
delay and the time you arrive in the time everything
gets off the plane and the inspections are dumb to
the time you're able to slowly taxi that aircraft all
(05:51):
the way over to the outside the airport where it
needs to go is considerable. Sometimes it can be several
hours in duration. A lot of these pilots are timing
out because are on continuous duty once they land and
the clock is running. So British Airway says, wouldn't it
be better if we positioned pilots at O'Hare simply to
taxi that aircraft once it's finished from the international arrival
(06:14):
point over to where we need it for the next time.
They did the math and said, this is going to
be good for customers. It's going to be good for
the pilots. One hundred thousand dollars sounds like a lot.
Well one year in Chicago, you live there, you know what.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not it sounds like pilots.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Who actually leave the ground get a lot more money
than that. But you know, for somebody that wants to
be home every day that you know, you know, just
you know what, you know, it's there, So it's but
what a fun headline is though to see that, or
you know, maybe they could use that as kind of
the Siberia joke. You know, you mess up on the
(06:51):
line and we're going to put you on the ground
taxing airplanes at Chicago. Instead of making two hundred and
eighty thousand a year, you'll be making one hundred thousand
a year. But uh yeah, most pilots want to fly,
But for those that want to stay on the ground
in taxi, yeah they can do it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Well, it's couldn't there be sort of a sub license
for that. You're not taking off, you're not landing, So
maybe we just have like a truck driver's certifications, which
allows you to move an aircraft while it's still on
the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
You can have fact, there's several maintenance people that are
qualified to taxi in aircraft, so you could go that route,
but again you're still talking about somebody that gets paid
a great deal of money to work on planes, get
them back in service and things of this nature, versus
here you're paying somebody to patiently taxi at a very
very slow speed that aircraft over to the other side
(07:39):
of the airport. So they feel like the pilots are
the best way to go about that. And yeah, it's
gonna be interesting to see if this experiment works for him,
because Brian, if it does, they're going to end up
using this same sort of a system at some of
their other international airports around the world. So it's gonna
be interesting to see. And I've rarely seen anyone do that.
(08:01):
I was going to ask, with your permission, to pivot
from this story to another one that we had.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
The one who says eighteen thousand flights have been canceled.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
No, I was going to actually go to a hero
on a flight. There was a Jet two flight. This
is a flight from Turkey to England that was delayed
for more than an hour. Once it was airborne, one
of the passengers decided to drink some alcohol she brought
on board the flight definitely against the rules. She was confronted.
She starts making a just a ruck as she starts screaming,
(08:31):
the crew preparing for an emergency landing so they can
offload this problem. And that's when a fellow passenger came
to the rescue, actually came over started talking to the
woman in a very calm voice. Brian. She actually calmed
down and the flight was able to continue without an
unscheduled stop. Now needless to save this passenger was the
plane's hero. But he was also eight years old, so wow,
(08:55):
what a great story. His name is Phoenix, which I
think is a cool aviation name, and he and his
father once they finally got home, they started being showered
with gifts from the airline, passengers and people around the
world that have heard the story. No idea says how
they got our address, But my son is continuing to
get gifts from all over the world. But an eight
(09:16):
year old came to the rescue.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That is amazing. Maybe we need more eight year olds
out of the world to de escalate these crazy people
we deal with day and day.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, don't be a Karen, be a Phoenix. I think
that's a very good thought of the day.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Need a T shirt for that with that aud it.
And just speaking of Chicago, I saw United Airlines is
cutting a lot of flights. Is eighteen thousand is this
from Chicago?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Hair only only eighteen thy two hundred to be exact,
And Brian, when you see they're cutting that from their
schedule in June, July, and August, that's when you're adding flights.
That's when you're adding service. That's when nobody goes on
vacation because the demand is high, the profit is high,
the fares are high. You want as many of those
silver revenue tubes rolling as you can get. And for
(10:01):
them to come in and say, we're going to have
to because of the cost of fuel that's increased and
the challenge is associated with that, we've got to cut
eighteen two hundred flights. We're seeing airlines around the world
do this and the last thing they want to do
is do this in the summer. But you have some
markets that you operate that the profit is minimal, but
(10:22):
it's still a profit. But when you are starting to
pay fifty sixty to seventy percent more in fuel, that
minor profit now becomes a loss. And some airlines are saying,
I'm not going to run this route. I'm going to
take that airplane to another route where our profit or
yield for passengers higher and do that. So they've been
moving things all over the place, trying to adjust on
the fly as they can. And yeah, it's not impacting
(10:45):
the United Chicago, but Delta's canceling flights. We're seeing Americans
do the same Southwest. Even the low cost carriers are
doing what they can to adjust as they need to
because again, they don't have many of these in the
United States, don't have hedge contracts where you've locked in
the price of fuel for an extended period of time. Now,
this practice of hedging is used to be something here
(11:08):
that airlines did all the time until we rolled into
the pandemic and then it just burned too many carriers
and they never did it again. Hedging is fuel hedging
is popular still in Europe. A lot of the low
cost carriers there do it, and they are really benefiting
right now from the idea of being locked in for
some time at a predetermined price of fuel that was
(11:29):
no negotiated before all this happened. And yeah, they're able
to weather this storm much much easier and making money
along the way.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
By cutting eighteen thousand flights on just as several months.
One airline that certainly speaks volumes about the volume of
flights in and out of Chicago, though, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Well yeah, well, well American in United had I think
eighty percent of the flights between them. But you know,
you're talking about eighteen thousand flights. You're talking three million seats.
So when you're talking about revenue from three million seats,
it adds up, and it's going to impact the United's
bottom line for sure. It's gonna impact every airline's bottom
(12:09):
line obviously. And I tell you this is not a
summer thing. We're seeing this even if things started resuming,
it's you know, it's gonna take a while to get
that flow going where the fuel can start to drop
and cost for aviation needs. And this could be a
you know, summer, fall, even winter thing. So it's gonna
be interesting to see where it goes.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Well, real briefly, since we're at a time of the segment.
You being the trader guy that you are a daytrade
fund dot com, I know you don't trade in long
term stocks, but has this already impacted the airline stock prices. This.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, we've seen some overreactions in some things, and obviously
certain people becoming a little bit more concerned. Most people
are looking at it as a temporary problem. So if
you're buying shares of whatever airline you're keep, you're continuing
to do that. You're just doing it at lower prices
in some regards. But look, the bottom line is they're
not most most people in the world, including Wall Street,
(13:01):
because yesterday, you know, we hit fifty thousand on the Dow.
It was. It's not looked at something that's going to
be a forever type problem. And let's things escalate and
as things continue, hopefully to calm down in that part
of the world, hopefully the fuel prices will start to
drop a bit as well. I feel for the truck drivers,
those independent owners and operators that I mean, good Lord,
(13:23):
sixty bucks a gallon or whatever.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, and rising and rising more with I Art mediavs.
Expert Jay rattlefts some interesting story spirit as well as
wait a second American and merging with United? Can that happen?
Don't go away? At you right back? Fifty five nine
fifty five kers the talk station Round Times with Jay
ratleft my heart. Media aviation expert am I reading this correctly,
American and United might merge.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Well, it was floated out weeks ago by United CEO
Jeff Scott Kirby, and Kirby said that yeah, he wouldn't
it be interesting if United, you and American got together
and merge, and of course set off kind of a
media firestorm that went everywhere. American quickly came out and said, look,
we're not interested, no thank you, and the it was
(14:08):
pretty well a done deal where it was kind of like, Okay,
that's parked, but we've got the pilots for American Airlines
that are come out saying wait a minute, time out.
Not a bad idea that this could actually work. So
I've been speculating for the last couple of weeks that
it's easy for American Airlines to say no thank you,
but American Airlines is not making but maybe twenty five
(14:30):
percent of the profit that United is.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
That answers the question. I literally just looked at the
stock price United is trading at one hundred and American
Airlines is a thirteen dollars stock.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
You've got it, and it's there for a reason. In
both cases. So you've got shareholders that are like, hey,
I like the United price of stock a lot better
than here. They're doing a lot of things, right, they
reported quarters of profit a billion with a B dollars
and more, and American, you know, a couple hundred million
(15:00):
if they can make that happen. So the pilots are
saying it may not be a bad idea. And then
you've got shareholders. I guarantee you there's some internal pressure
now that that's been floated out there is hey, this
might not be a bad idea. So the more that
people say there's nothing to see here, a dead story,
I'm like, yeah, right, it may come to pass. Now,
(15:23):
if American and merger American in United went skipping down
the road in a merger attempt, what would the Trump
administration do? Now? Keep in mind, this is the same
administration that has been blasting the Biden administration for not
allowing Jet Blue and Spirit to merge. I'm glad that
(15:45):
merger didn't go through, by the way, because it wasn't
good for consumers. But the bottom line is, I think
of American and United went forward with this, the Trump
administration would allow it. I don't think it would be
a good idea because it would give them collectively some
percent of the you know, the Chicago O'Hare presidence. They
would own it, and you would see so few levels
(16:09):
of competition, a lot of different markets for your seats,
higher fares. It would not be good for consumers, but
that's not saying it wouldn't be allowed.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Fair enough on that one. And since you mentioned Spirit,
some love being shown by the airline folks out there
for the employees lost their jobs at Spirit Airlines.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
We're seeing so many stories, so many pictures. There's a
picture on a Frontier flight of some Spirit people that
were flying home. I don't know if they were crew
members or employees, and you see the Frontier flight attendants
standing around and praying over them, and it was just
such a I mean it. And you've got Jet Blue
that's coming out saying, look, if for all of the
Spirit passengers that are stranded, we're gonna give you a
(16:48):
ninety some dollars fare to get home. So just prove
to us, show us your copy of your itinerary on
Spirit will give you these discount of tickets to get
you home. You've got other airlines that are set up
up preferential employment screening if somebody wants to apply for
a job. So you've got all of this stuff that's
happening in an industry where it's coming together, and Brian,
(17:10):
I tell you, it really warms my heart to see because
you know, yes, we have thousands of stranded passengers, absolutely,
and airlines are doing what they can to assist those
people to in essence, airlift them out of where they're
at to get them home. But you also have seventeen
thousand current employees, many of which who already agreed to
take a pay cut to try to help their airlines
stick around. And you know, they did everything they could,
(17:34):
but you know, the clock simply ran out. They were
just a victim of a lot of unfirfortunate circumstances. I
think you remember you and I talking that they had
twenty percent of their fleet spirit did before the pandemic
that was parked. They couldn't use it because they had
Pratt and Whitney engines that had problems, and Pratt and
Whitney couldn't figure it out, so they could not use
twenty percent of their fleet. Pandemic hits. Obviously, all the
(17:58):
wheels come off of everything there we come out of it.
The demand for travel is a little bit sluggish. Everybody
gets up and rolling full steams to an extent, and
then we have this fuel situation hit. So it's been
one bad thing after another, which is why Spirit had
to file bankruptcy twice in seventeen months. But you know,
as a community, people are coming together and I'm really
glad to see it.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, you know, you look at that whole COVID thing
with a twenty twenty perspective, you think, Wow, how much
industry and business was destroyed as a consequence of our
overreaction and COVID. Wouldn't we be able to do it
over again? How much different it would be?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
You really, you think so?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I mean, I want to say I would love to think,
Rah if anything, that trip taught me that this group
would do the exact same thing. I mean, people would
just shut down and look for somebody to take care
of them.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I know. That's the frightening reality of the world these days.
Oh my god, the government's going away? What anyhow? Jay
rattl If you always end on hub delays, what's going
on with air travel out there right now?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Head morning issues Charlotte in Atlanta. Bad news, good news
that weather's getting out of the way. And yesterday was
a mess, but this isn't yesterday. Today it looks pretty good.
Uh and Lanta and Charlotte could still see some minor
delayed dimper maybe a few. All in all, it should
be a pretty good day to fly today, and hopefully
the conditions will only improve as the day progresses.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Jay Ratlife will be looking patiently waiting for your report
about how much money you made while we were talking
this morning, Jay Ratliffe, I love only.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Three hundred dollars. It was a it was a slow
I got to pay attention to us, not you know,
not the other stuff going on there.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Enough, Hey, you made more money. It's twenty five minutes
than must people make working a full day or a week,
Jay Ratliff, we'll talk next Thursday. Best of health and
loved you and your better half, my friend eight fifty
five right now
Brian Thomas News
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