IHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff talks about the week in aviation

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Channel nine first one and wetherforecas it's going to be
a sunny day to day like the more humid eighty
eight for the high overnight low sixty six with a
few clowns, plenty of sun today. Humidity not a big deal.
That's Chaneline speaking. Don't hold me a cattle if it's not.
It's ninety one for it tomorrow overnight low of sixty eight,
but around fireworks time it does coverage of the a

(00:26):
comfortable eighty degrees and there will be clear skies eight
well ninety four. That's hot on Saturday with humidity climbing
sunny skies. It's seventy two down time for a Traffic
updates from.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
The UC House Triumphant Center.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
The University of Cincinnati Cancer Center has the most comprehensive
blood cancer center in the nation. The future of cancer
care is here called five one, three, five eighty five.
You seen see see rex clear northbound seventy one at
five for traffic looks good out of ken Wood southbound
seventy five slows through Wachland. There's an accident on Williams
Over seventy one and outside of Milford on one thirty

(01:05):
one near dry Run Chuck Ingram on fifty five KARC
DE talk station.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Hey thirty one off Thursday Friday Eve, Independence Day Eve,
call it what you want. It's that time of the
week we get to talk to iHeartMedia, aviactiondent for Jay
or Ratlift Day.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Welcome back.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
My friend got some good, big plans for the special
weekend here.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
We're in Savannah, so probably sit on our porch and
watch some fireworks over the water. Somewhere somebody will be
shooting them off. So we'll enjoy the neighbors when they
have some fun.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
That's great. Good to have a relaxing weekend ahead you
and over to the various topics. We've got some interesting
ones to dive on in today. Not a good change
is how you describe it. What's going on over at
Southwest Airlines? Jay?

Speaker 4 (01:48):
You know you and I've talked about how airlines like Delta,
American United, they have all changed their freaking flyer programs,
making it harder.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
To earn your frequent flyer you know perks.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
Well, now Southwest is considering doing something with their Companion Pass. Now,
the Companion Pass is great for their frequent flyers. They
get the pass and the Companion if they pay full ticket,
the companion goes for free other than paying the taxes.
Even if you use a Frequent Flyer Award ticket, you
can still get a companion pass. So it's an incredible

(02:21):
perk for the loyalty program that Southwest has built for
all their customers over all these years. Well, they're thinking
about redoing that where only the top tier people of
the frequent flyer program would qualify for the companion pass
and other people would not. So it's once again the
idea that you know it used to be, like with

(02:42):
Delta American United. Part of their change is if you
could only fly first our coach, because that's all your
company paid for, and but you got a gazillion miles,
You've got a great status with the airline. You were
in coach, and you know if they get an empty
spot in first class, upgrade me for free, and you know,
I get to sit up there from time to I'm
in it.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
It helps when I'm on the road.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Fifty year well, now airlines have changed that saying if
you want to sit in first class, you have to.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Pay for it.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
So you've got these frequent flyers with all these miles,
all these decades of loyalty that are on their way
back to coach. The door shuts and they see like
five empty seats in first class, Like, wait, what's going on?
And these airlines are saying you have to pay for
it or use miles to sit up there. In other words,
you have to pay for it, you know, Oh, you
enjoy your loyalty program.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
How Southwest, you're.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Not saying you can't use miles to buy an upgrade.
They still offer that, correct, they do.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
But you've got to burn it. Okay.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
It used to be just if they had it, they
would sit you up there because it's an empty seat,
Come on up, we want somebody sitting in there, right,
But now they're not doing it, so Brian, what's happening
is the arrogance of these airlines have gotten to the
point where they know they're they're they're they're spitting in
the face of their customers that have been loyal through
thick and thin, and they don't care. And Southwest is

(03:57):
looking at changing their companion pass program. I certain hope
they don't. But if they're going to continue this pivot,
this transition from Southwest of old to let's be like
everybody else, they're seeing what other airlines are doing, and
they're thinking, yeah, I mean, it would be a way
to kind of boost our bottom line, and obviously that's
the main thing that we're after, and that's what we're

(04:18):
gonna do. And it's it's really sad and it's just frustrating.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Well, obviously, you know, they can get away with this
because if everybody's the same as this homogeneous, everybody offers
as little or as much as the other guy, you
can't better your situation by becoming a loyal Southwest Airlines
customer as opposed to an American or United or whatever
else is out there. People are probably not going to
change their decision about what they're gonna who they're gonna

(04:42):
fly with based on these changes.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
And the same thing with the check bag feet you.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
Know, yeah, ye it change throws it in there and
people are like, go, well, where you're gonna go because
everybody else is.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Doing the exact same thing.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
So it's just a departure from what Southwest used to do.
And anytime you have that, you're gonna people that are
going to nobody's gonna love it, but they're going to
hate it to varying degrees. And someone say I'll never
fly them again. But you know, some of those changes
in the past they've made, it pushed people to other
airlines Delta and United. When they you know, started preventing
people from sitting in first class and joining those benefits,

(05:16):
it pushed them to other carriers. And it's just the
bottom line is, you know, you can earn a gazillion miles,
but you're really going to have to work your butt off.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
To use them, and you're going to be paying.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
More for the seat when you do use it. And
it's just as long as we keep filling up the airplanes.
As we've said so many times before, Brian airlines have
no incentive to treat us any.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Better than what they do.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Fair Enough, we'll continue with iHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratlift
coming up FBI warning about additional cyber strikes against airlines
that among other topics with Jay will be right.

Speaker 5 (05:47):
Back fifty fives KARC the talk station would a thirty
nine think about KRCD talk station Jay Ratlift, iHeartMedia Aviation
Expert high demand considering our heart met he has like
seven hundred and fifty stations, but we get him every
Thursday for a few segments and I dearly enjoy our
time together.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Jay always makes me feel better closing out the morning
show on something that doesn't really truly involve like terrible politics,
global war, famine, pestilence, but this one's got me a
little alarmed. FBI warning about cyber strikes against airlines. M.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, it's been happening.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
In fact, multiple airlines have reported these cyber attacks, and
we had west Jet, which is a low cost carrier
in Canada. We've had Hawaiian Airlines that was attacked as well,
and the concern is that other airlines could be impacted.
The Federal Avia Administration had a statement that came out saying, look,
none of these have impacted safety, but certainly it's something

(06:46):
that is on the radar as they're trying to find
the people that are responsible. And apparently it's this scattered
spider group that has gone for the last several years
attacking various sectors.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
They went after the casinos.

Speaker 4 (06:59):
In Vegas, then they went after the insurance companies, and
they kind of pop around from industry to industry, and
apparently now it's the airline industry that is being targeted.
So the FBI is investigating, and of course you know,
we're hoping that during a busy summer travel season we
don't have some of this stuff flare up, Brian, but
just kind of have to wait and see.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
But now, now, are these like ransomware type situations? Are
they just cracking in to grab data? Are they trying
to shut the systems down? Because when you talk about
the airlines getting attacked, that's not like saying the air
traffic control system is under cyber attack. Are those we're
talking about too.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
It's the airline system itself where it can be impacted
to such a degree that you can't schedule aircraft, schedule
flight crews, you know, reconfirm reservations, the things that make
an airline logistically move hour to hour.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Minute by minute.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
And once you impede that, then you know, all bets
are off as far as what can happen. And just
like the FAA computers, airline computers have never been known
as the state of the art because you and I've
talked about how these airlines like pac Man have gobbled
up five or six airlines over the decades, so they're
kind of a combination of several carriers and what they've

(08:14):
done is kind of pieced together all those computer networks
to make them work, as opposed to spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to completely redo everything every time they
turn the corner. The thought is, hey, if it's working,
why spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. But
the problem is that your firewall protections and other things

(08:34):
that should be in place to try to prevent this
type of cyber attack isn't exactly state of the art.
So I don't want to say the door is opened,
but it's certainly cracked, and apparently this group is taking
advantage of it. And at least a couple of airlines
that we know of, and there have been many times
where we've seen airlines report computer issues in quotes, but
they've not gone any farther than that. So there's a

(08:56):
possibility that some of the past issues have also been
a cyber attack of some kind that you know, just
wasn't made public knowledge.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Well, considering it's this known entity, this hacking organization that
is moving through these various industries, does what they have
done to the other industries that they've attacked indicate what
they're trying to do with the airlines? In other words,
going back to my question, are they looking for a
shakedown on money or they just been okay, so it's
a ransomware thing.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
In the Vegas one, I know that they had a
ransom of a million or two million dollars or something
along those lines, as I recall, But that's been a
few years ago since that happens, so my memories, you know.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
A little bit foggy on that.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
Yeah, it's it's it's an inconvenience, and you know, does
it impact safety? The FAA is saying no, I think
to a degree, it could certainly start to impact safety
to a very small extent. It would never prevent me
from going out and jumping on an airplane, because what
would end up happening would be if the computer's had
an issue, that plan's not going anywhere until they work

(09:59):
out the paperworking on all the stuff behind the scenes,
and then you can go. You're still going to be
flying on a perfectly good airplane through an air traffic
control system that's operating as it should. It's just the
internal workings for that specific airline. Now, the fact that
airlines are their own little separate entity is nice because
they're not all interconnected, which means if you got in

(10:19):
the door of American, you could have access to United
at Southwest and all the other carriers. So at least
that part of it's working to our advantage.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Fair enough, all right, Apparently something scary happening on a
japan Airline flight. What's this one all about?

Speaker 4 (10:33):
Yeah, thirty six thousand feet cruising along. All of a sudden,
they had some sort of a mechanical situation that required
the flight crew to get the aircraft under ten thousand
feet in fast. Oh, so they went on a ten
minute quick descent. That wasn't a nose down kind of thing,
but believe me, when you dip and go down, it's
that roller coaster feeling in your stomach. And the oxygen

(10:55):
mask come down because apparently there was a fear of
a cabin pressure maybe being released, and the thought was
get it under ten thousand feet so that you don't
have to worry about the onboard oxygen, and the crew
declared an emergency. They landed safely in Osaka. Passengers, though,
so freaked out, they said some of the flight attendants
were crying, Oh wow, the kind of thing you want

(11:17):
to see from the people in charge. Now, whether that's
true or not, I don't know. But the passengers were
so freaked out they were scribbling out notes to the
loved ones, convinced that the plane was.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Oh my god, yeah, and I guess.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
But they were compensated by Japan Airlines. Each one of
them got ninety three dollars.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Well, that takes the edge off right there.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
We're telling you, I mean, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
And a great story on the importance of bringing along
a change of underwear and your carry on bags.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
It was a some anxious moment, my friend.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
I guarantee you that, yep, and justifiably so. Eight forty
five you're talking about a flight crew being suspended and
will also get an update on hub delays. One more
with Jay Ratliffe on this beautiful Independence Day Eve fifty
five KRC fin A look at the weather. Not bad.
I have eighty eight today, slightly more human and sunny

(12:08):
overnight a few clouds, low of sixty six Independence Day,
plenty of sun. Humidity will not be a big deal,
says Channel nine ninety one. For the high be a
dust temperature for fireworks time about eighty degrees overnight low
sixty eight, clear skies and a sticky hot Saturday ninety
four is going to be the high end. Close are
that at seventy four? Time for final traffick.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Chuck Ingram from the UCL Triumphing Center, the University of
Cincinnati Cancer Center, hence the most comprehensive blood cancer center
in the nation. The future of cancer care is here
called five on three five eighty five.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
You see see see.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Suth pounds seventy five continues to run a bit slow
out of Lackland. But other than that, highways are looking good.
I'm not seeing any delays on southbound seventy five at
the Brand Spence in south two seventy five now looks good.
Chuck Ingram, Month fifty five, K see the talk station.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
If I give out CAIRCD talk station based on that
traffick report, my guess there's a lot of people taking
work off today, making it four day weekend. Why not?
Brian Thomas here with iHeartMedia Adas. Nextpert Jay Rattler, if
we're going to pivot over away from soil inducing Japanese
airline descents to a suspension of an entire flight crew? Jay,

(13:23):
what's this one about?

Speaker 2 (13:24):
It was? It comes back to a Garuda flight.

Speaker 4 (13:27):
This is an Indonesian carrier. The aircraft was flying Jakarta
to Melbourne and there was a.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Man that was sitting in business class and about.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
Halfway through the flight, he drops his phone in the
seedback pocket in front of him and forgets all about
it what until he was at baggage claim he goes, whoops,
don't have my phone. So he was afraid that perhaps
maybe it was already on its way to another destination.
So with another device, he uses that apples Find my
app device.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
To see where in the airport his phone might be.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
Well, it turned out out that the phone was at
a nearby hotel and its yeah, so's he's already contact
with the Garuda representative at the airport and he said,
my phone's at this hotel and the and the guy
from the airline says, well, that's the one our flight
crews use. So this passenger grabs his family, jumps in
a taxi, takes off to the hotel, has the Garuda

(14:21):
rep meet him there, and then the rep gets keys
to the rooms for the flight crew and they start
searching the rooms for this phone. Now this guy's tracking
it and he says, well it's not here now and
what happened was he tracked it over a bridge and
then it disappeared plunk, it went offline. Apparently somebody walked

(14:43):
it over to a nearby bridge and dropped it into
the water. And so was it a crew member or not.
The airline doesn't know, But until they find out, they
suspended the entire flight crew. But I mean, you talking
about somebody tenacious. I don't know what was on that phone,
but he was in a bad kind of trying to
get it back and then something. I mean, when you're

(15:03):
chasing people down like that, that's saying something.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Well, and maybe it was at that point where they
threw the phone in the water off the bridge, that
was the person realizing, oh wait a minute, I stole
a phone, and it's really easy to track cell phone
these days.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
I may as well dump it. Yeah, I'm going to
steal this car. Nobody will find me, okay.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
Well, anyway, reminds me of of the justice that was
meeted down upon us in elementary school. Somebody made a
noise in the bathroom that disturbed a teacher. She hauled
every single one of the boys out in the hallway
and threatened every single one of us with a paddle.
Remember back in the days when you could get swatted
at school unless someone yeah, unless someone stepped forward in
a minute there with the person who made the noise,

(15:47):
so one way of ferreting it out. Yeah, I think
somebody did step forward. I don't think that was that
story out there hanging.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
I got to know the end of it.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, No, I was the recipient of corporal punishment without
justice and without due process one occasion. But I won't
tell that story anyway.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
We always know your career got started.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
The always end on hub delays. What's it like traveling
out there on this busy, busy holiday week and I
understand we're going to be setting a record out there.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
We could be.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
In fact, a couple of days we've already been at
two point nine even three million, and I think probably
less than six seven times we've hit three million in
the course of a day. But weather wise, today Dallas
and Houston could see some issues. Miami and Tampa are
going to be really an issue. But Brian, I think
if some of this tropical storm weather that they're talking
about maybe coming up sometime next week, we might be

(16:38):
having a bigger impact on the hubs for next next week.
But you know, most of these flights are pretty well full,
so it's not like we're going to see a drastic
increase in the number of passengers that are flying. So
it's going to be busy regardless of the time. And
you and I talked about it before. Remember that Galaxy
Note seven cell phone that was made in twenty.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Sixteen yea and by the FAA.

Speaker 4 (17:01):
So if you've got one of those, show up at
the airport, you're certainly going to be slowed down. But
this is the time of year you want to get
to the airport plenty of time because playing let's see
how cuse we cut, how close we can cut it
is going to be a game you'll lose because it's
a little slower at the airports.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, I read an article this morning they said today
there'll be like fifty two thousand flights. That just seems like,
oh my god.

Speaker 4 (17:23):
And the TSA is managing all of that, yeah, on.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Those old, antiquated computers.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
So if you want to understand just how good some
of these men and women are, they make it happen
with that. But yeah, I think the TSA indicated that
yesterday we had two point seven million people fly so
and on the twenty nine two point nine, so we've
had several days again knocking at the door of three million,
so that's a lot of people flying. So yeah, get

(17:49):
to the airport at least two hours before departure. Make
sure that you get to the gate as quickly as
you can, and yeah, enjoy.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Your fly and a lot of return travel on Sunday.
From what I read that maybe the banner day, so
definitely get there early on a Sunday if you're coming back.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
This Sunday after Thanksgiving. Kind of numbers, but believe me,
you're right, it's going to be a hectic time at
the airport. Hopefully get tsa pre check and you can
get through the shorter line a little faster.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Jay, always appreciated, best of health, loved you in your
better half, and enjoy your Independence Day weekend. I'll look
forward to next week and another edition of the Aviation
Update with you.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
A lot to be thankful for, especially as we celebrate
winning the lottery to be an American my friends, So yeah,
plan and unjoining.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Amen to that, brother, take care of yourself. Jay Rattliffe
eight fifty four. Folks, you didn't get a chance. We
had a special Tech Friday with Dave Hatter on a Thursday.
Wi Fi companies tracking you movements in your houses. Yes,
your Wi Fi system can tell an outside entity where
you are and if someone is in your home. Artificial
intelligence going after your wallet, and a judge allows artificial intelligence.

(18:48):
Testimony from a dead man at a sentencing hearing crazy
stuff that shaz comp with her book, The Ultimate Vaccine Timeline,
going back to the dawn of vaccines, fast forward all
the way through modern times and some pretty frightening stuff
she had to reveal in our short talk. Listen to
what she had to say and get a copy of
the book at fifty five kres dot com. Morgan Gibson
what a wonderful organization. She's the CEO of First Step Home.

(19:11):
It's a local nonprofit that provides support for women with
substance abuse and their children. The only organization in the
area that allows children to live with their mothers that
are in recovery. The Help Squad, Sam Jasper and Brian
Brian Ebol They could use your help. You want to
fulfill your own personal mission, volunteer for them. You can
become a community partner if you've got services that can

(19:32):
help out folks on life's margins on the West Side.
They are award winners and they're doing great work every
single day. So check them out at help squadsincy dot
com to learn more. Check out the podcast page again.
Not in tomorrow taking the day off. He'll be a
best of program and I'll be back on Monday with
Christopher Smithing and Brian Jane presumably just Trekker executive producer.

(19:52):
God bless you, sir and all that you do to
keep the morning show going. Without you, there wouldn't be one.
Have a wonderful Independence Day everyone in listening on, and
so I hope you really enjoy yourself and enjoy a
safe Independence Day as well. Don't go away. Limbeck's coming
right up.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Big things are happening.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
This justin will tell you more at the top of
the hour.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
What they are doing is terrorizing immigrant families.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Fifty five KRC the talk station.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
This report