IHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff talks about the week in aviation

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dot channel nine first one of one.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
The forecast floodwatch begins at two pm last till midnight.
Scattered storms are likely today. We're going to high eighty
six with the hotter heat in deck seventy three overnight,
with more rain tomorrow, showers storms likely in the afternoon.
It will be sticky muddy eighty five for the high
thady or an every slight chance of storms seventy one
eighty three the high on Saturday, with very humid conditions

(00:24):
and a chances some more rain seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Right now, let's hear about traffic.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
You see how Traffic Center. You see how Brain Tumor
Center finds answers for some of the most complex brain tumors.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Learn more at you see how dot com.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Northbound seventy five ad an extra ten out of Erlinger
into downtown, then slow and again at the lateral southbound
seventy five and extra five through Lachlan, just a bit
heavy southbound seventy one through Blue Ash and inbound seventy
four from Montana to seventy five. Chuck King ramon fifty
five KRS the talk station.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hey thirty viney five KRC DE talk station Friday EE
it is that time of week I always look forward to.
I heard me the aviation expert Jay Ratlo joins the
program and talk aviation issues. Of course, that's his area
of expertise that in stock trading. Nice couple of days
you had there. He always lets me know a lot
much he makes, which cracks me up. You doing a
good job, Jay, Well.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
Just it's patience that I teach my students. If you
can just be patient, the opportunities are there. And you
know if my students sometimes will send me an email, Jay,
only made six percent here, and they're ticked, and I'm like,
what you would take to make six percent using anything else?
Anywhere else? Yeah, sometimes when your expectations are high, you
have you know, a little bit you it's like you

(01:40):
you know, you've got high expectations of yourself, and you know,
anything less than that you don't find totally satisfactory.

Speaker 5 (01:47):
I spend a lot of.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Time reminding my students that, you know, when you're doing
what other people consider impossible. Yeah, I appreciate every win
because those smaller.

Speaker 5 (01:55):
Gains that up.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Good point, Jay, good point. And I always appreciate your
optimism too. Let us start, if you don't mind what's
going out order here? Because the Air India crash has
got all the rage. We had this initial report that
suggests the one of the two pilots turned the fuel
switches off. There are switches in the airplane which allow
you to cut the fuel to the engines. Now you
may want to explain the reason why those even exist,

(02:17):
but it's I guess, fairly well confirmed that the flight
data recorder indicates that those switches were turned off shortly
after takeoff. One of the pilots asked the other one
why he did that, and he claimed he did not
do that. There was an effort to turn the switches
back on, but by then it was too late. What
this I mean, it's sounding intentional, Jay, And this wouldn't
be the first intentional murder slash suicide that's happened on

(02:41):
air aircraft before.

Speaker 5 (02:43):
It would not be.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
And obviously we're talking about the initial report that was
just a few weeks after the accident itself, and the
final report is a good twelve months or so down
the road. But the fuel control switches, there are times
when you do need to cut the fuel flow to
a specific engine if you're having problems with it, and

(03:06):
there's two switches, and there's spring controlled spring loaded, I
guess is a better way to phrase it. And you
just grab it and you pull it straight out and
then over a little thing in the middle and then
drop it back into place again with the assistance of
the spring.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
So you can't bump it off.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I mean, the point is, yeah, it requires a specific
mechanical action that pulling out component.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
Right, and there's two black boxes. The flight data recorder
is what investigators were able to glean the information from.
That said, shortly after rotation, in other words, just as
the wheels left the runway is when they were put
into the off position, and you can hear that on
the cockpit voice recorder, which is just not the voices,

(03:50):
but you could hear the click of each one of
those being put in are repositioned one after the other,
and because of the location, they would be something you
would do one at a time. Left to right is
typically how the flight crew would do it, but hero
is a situation where you don't know why it took place. Now,

(04:11):
a lot of times, as a matter of procedure, if
you're flying the airplane, when you get to the gate,
one of the last things you'll do is cut.

Speaker 5 (04:18):
The fuel to the engines.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
It's just a precautionary measure. Stop the float to the
aircraft engines, just part of the protocol. There might be
times in flight where you've got a problem with an
engine and you need to cut one or even both
off at a specific time, but Brian, you never do
it right after takeoffs.

Speaker 5 (04:37):
And they were in the.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
Off position reportedly from this initial report for about ten
seconds before they were put back. One of the engines
started to respond, but sixty second flight they didn't have
nearly enough time. But the Wall Street Journal report that
the pilot that apparently did it is considered to be
the captain. Now, I know a lot of times the

(05:02):
thought was, okay, could it have been this junior first officer,
But you know, the junior first officer was one that
was flying the airplane.

Speaker 5 (05:09):
His hands were full.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
You've got the captain that was monitoring, because the pilot
in command at that point in time of the aircraft
was the first officer, and apparently it was him that
looked to the captain and said, why do you turn
those those offs, to which he responded he did not. Now,
could it be something where they he did something where
he was thinking something else. Typically not because when that

(05:31):
procedure happens, it's a it's a it's a process where
you say you're about to do it, the other pilot, uh,
you know, confirms, and then the action is done, the
fingers put on the the switch and again it's communicated,
you know, cutting power to engine two done. It's a
back and forth thing where you don't have one pilot

(05:53):
acting on their own. It's a team effort in everything.
So sadly, this latest revelation, the one from the initial report,
could suggest that we could go through this entire year
long investigation and not really have a good idea of
why it happened. Yeah, but we know what took place,
but the why aspect of it not. Now, this is

(06:15):
going to be something that you can hear a lot
of people talking about why we need a cameras in
the cockpit, which pilots are dead set against.

Speaker 5 (06:23):
I think that they should be there.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
They're they're in trains and buses and all these other
kinds of things everywhere. So I don't I don't, you know,
I don't agree with that at all. But the other
thing that is going to be pushing here is Oh,
here we go, Jay, Yet another crash, another loss of
life due to pilot air And isn't it time that
we have more automation in the cockpits so we can

(06:45):
have fewer pilots. And even though I'm against the idea,
it's it's a fair argument to have.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Well, yeah, and Holman Jenkins made that argument today. He
just brought up the concept. But we wouldn't have to
completely remove the pilots to incorporate automation. And one of
the suggestions he had was, why not have you know,
ground based ability to take over control of the flight. Well,
that doesn't eliminate human error, but how about artificial intelligence,
you know, like the seven thirty seven Max software upgrade
that they didn't bother telling pilots about to have AI

(07:14):
scream at the pilots you're doing it wrong, or do
this rather than what you're doing, or stop what you
are doing. I mean, that seems like an easy extension
of the intelligence we already have now.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
Well, and it's there because you know, when Air India
flight took off, there was a lot of people saying
that the flaps weren't in the proper sense for takeoff.
And I'm thinking well, then you're ignoring a very loud
screeching sound in the cockpit because that aircraft is going
to tell you the flaps are not set for takeoff
as you're starting to roll. So that's something that we

(07:47):
already have. So we've got the automation, the protective systems
within the cockpit and avi onyx that we have as
a package on a lot of different aspects of the operation.
You don't have a landing gear down as you approach
the ground and alarm sounds. All these things are there
to help the pilots who may have a lot of
things going on to remember to do specific things. But

(08:11):
something like that, you know to to not you know,
Plus the engines are humming and you and at that
point of rotation they're room I mean, they've got that.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Deep rumble and you cut the power.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
On those, you're immediately going to know it, yeah, because
they're gonna start to spool down. So that in itself
is an audio alert that something's wrong. So we have
some of that stuff built in that's there. But you know,
if somebody's intent I don't care. If if the ground
does have the capability to take over, there's always going

(08:44):
to be a way on board for the aircraft crew
members to override it if there's something else that's going
ongoing that maybe isn't initially detected. So Ran there's a
lot of questions here, and we're gonna have to wait
and see where things go. They're looking into the mental
health of the pilots, and a lot of pilot union
people I've talked to, and I have students that are
commercial pilots, are saying, you know, let's be very slow

(09:06):
as we rush the judgment here. And I certainly agree
that we need to do that, but it's it does
not look good. And the way you honor the lives
of people that were lost is Okay, if it was
a mechanical situation, let's fix it and move on. When
it involves possible mental health, that's.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
A totally different walk game.

Speaker 5 (09:26):
And then you're looking at.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Your crew members when they get on like, okay, are
you okay to fly today? And that's an unsettling thought.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
It is certainly an unsettling thought. And maybe when something
like that outside of the ability of a non medical
professional to clearly assess. Let's bring Jay Ratliff back more
to talk about including idiots doing idiot things because they're idiots.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
It's eight thirty nine right now. If you have KCD
talk station fifty five KRC, did you pass?

Speaker 2 (09:53):
I heard me the aviation nextpert Jay Rival moving away
real quick here before we pass on air Andy. I
just got to ask it because it came out earlier
in the conversations this morning with listeners. Do they ever
do any follow up mental health screenings of pilots like
throughout their career, Like, hey, every year you got to
come in and do a psych check or something like that.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
Now we have the overall fitness part of it, the
mental health aspect is encouraged, but unless it's depending on
an airline and something I'm not aware of most of
the time, it is not there as needed. And fortunately
there's a lot of pilots that take advantage of that.
And you know why pilots would be considered immune from

(10:33):
all the things that impact all of us and all
these other different professions. I mean, obviously those men and
women go.

Speaker 5 (10:39):
Through a lot.

Speaker 4 (10:40):
So yeah, man, it's there for them as they need
and fortunately a lot of people take advantage of it.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
All right, And why would someone punch a United Airlines
gate agent Jay Ratliffe.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
Well, normally alcohol is involved. This was at the Washington
Dallas Airport. He had a delayed flight, and anytime you
have a really delayed flight, you know people are gonna
be spending time relaxing alcohol. And there was a man
that came up. He started yelling at the gate agent.
He actually took his boarding passes that I refused to fly,

(11:13):
tore it up, and then storm back to the ticket
counter demanded another one. Well, but the captain is aware
of some of this that's ongoing. So the captain you know,
shows up and pulls the passenger off to the side
and says, you're not flying on this airplane.

Speaker 5 (11:27):
I mean, it's just we'll help you on.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
Another flight, but you're not gonna be on my aircraft. Well,
the guy gets mad and walks over to the gate
agent and punches him and knocks the gate agent out. Well,
the passengers arrested off. He goes he could have faced
ten years in prison two hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine,
as these always are, it's flea dealed down where I
think he had to pay fifteen thousand to the gate

(11:52):
agent he knocked out. He will face the fine from
the FAA be banned from flying United Airlines ever again.
But you know he can fly Delta tomorrow, Yeah, the
next day, all these other US carriers. A man who's
proven to be a threat to fellow passengers and other
crew members, perhaps it's allowed to fly. And I just

(12:15):
I think that's wrong. Now if it's a situation where
they get in an argument, disagreement, you know, blah blah. Okay,
I get that we don't want to ban somebody like that,
But to me, here's a very clear case. He can't
put them on the terror watch list, but a clear
case of where okay, you've lost your flying privileges, which
is what it is, yes, for a year, for two

(12:36):
years something where there's some significance with regards to consequences,
and Brian, it just doesn't exist because airlines aren't willing
to create something like that because it's at a cost
for them to create that kind of database, manage that
database to keep these individuals off the fly.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
All right, Well, I guess Delta air Lines is looking
to maximize profits. Now they're going to be using artificial
eligence to do that. Jay Ratliff will come back and
tell us how that's gonna work plus hub delays. One
more segment with I heard media aviation expert Jayradliff. It's
eight forty six right now fifty five kercit talk station
fifty five KRC.

Speaker 6 (13:13):
Mark your calendars for July twenty six at Miami Valley Gaming.
It's your chance to drive home a winner in a
brand new Mercedes convertible. Or you could walk away with
forty five grand in cash a new Mercedes or forty
five grand at Miami Valley Gaming on July twenty six.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Must be twenty one.

Speaker 6 (13:31):
Ohio Problem Gambling Helpline one eight hundred and five eight
nine nine ninety sixty six or visit org.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Dot Ohio dot com.

Speaker 5 (13:38):
Ready to take a.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Break, visit Timeout Ohio dot com. Worry about your money?
One more look at the weather.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
It's got in afternoon storms likely about around one o'clock.
Floodwatch kicks in. It to last until midnight. Pretty broad
area for the floodwatch too. Today's I eighty six seventy
three overnight with more rain. Got an opportunity for some
more rain tomorrow again it'll be sticky and I have
eighty five cloudy overnight sly chance rain seventy one and
another sticky Saturday with the chance of showers eighty three

(14:06):
Saturdays high closing out at eighty Right now, time for
final traffic.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Chuck from the UC Help Tramfic Center. The UC Health
Brain Tumor Center finds answers for some of the most
complex brain tumors.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Learn more at uc health dot com.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
Northbound seventy five at an extra ten minutes between Turf
Way and Town stapbound seventy five. That's a slow go
in and out of Blackland. Stapbound seventy one heavy. It's
between Fighter and the Reagan Highway. Chuck ingramon fifty five
KRC the talk station.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Hey forty eight, fift five KRCD talk station Happy Friday,
e Tech Friday, Dave pat of Tomorrow at six thirty,
like it is every Friday, the meantime. One more here
with IRT media Aviation expert Jay Ratliffe. Artificial intelligence creeping
in everywhere and og there's a pesky profit motive motive
over at Delta Airlines. How are they using AI to
maximize their profits?

Speaker 4 (14:56):
Jay, Well, you know most of the time and for
decades there lines of us what we call a static
pricing model for their pricing of their seats, sell x
percentage at this low price, and then a slightly lower
percent at a higher price, and it goes from there,
and as each one's ticked off the available seats, the.

Speaker 5 (15:15):
Fare goes up.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
Well, Delta has been using over the last several years
artificial intelligence as a way to kind of boost their profit.
Now they're saying, we're doing this because it gives the
customer the price they're willing to pay, so they're saying
it's a good thing for consumers. Now, this is also
the same airline that was caught charging more for a

(15:37):
single traveler than for a couple traveling on the same route,
so sometimes up to seventy percent more. So am I
going to necessarily believe that this increase in AI pricing
is for my benefit?

Speaker 5 (15:52):
No, it's for profit.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
And Delta right now is planning as much as twenty
percent of their fares to be based on artificial intelligence pricing.
And obviously Delta right now is leading the pack with
regards to the revenue their performance. They're just a very
very well ran airline and they will be setting the
pace for other airlines because they'll follow this as well.

(16:13):
So artificial intelligence as it's in its infancy, if you will,
and a lot of aspects and businesses. It's the exact
same thing here. Where airlines can use this a for pricing,
they're certainly using it for customer service where they have
artificial intelligence responding to people as they have various questions
and things.

Speaker 5 (16:33):
And it's back.

Speaker 4 (16:34):
To the more technology we have, the cheaper it will
be for us because we do not have to worry
about employee costs and benefits and.

Speaker 5 (16:42):
All the things that go with that.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
And yeah, they're running in this direction as fast as
they can so, but I love Delta. They are my
carrier of choice, but I am not going to believe
artificial intelligence is being put in place for my benefit
of pricing.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
I'm sorry, it's a safe bet, Jay.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Now the AI will will probably be performing some sort
of actuarial analysis in order to determine pricing. Like I
guess they could figure out which flights to which destination
typically have more business travelers and those are the ones
that are willing to pay the most money for a
ticket as opposed to like maybe holiday destinations where people
have the luxury to plan a year in advance for
their for their flight and it.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
Can also look back to what Jay's paid on previous tickets. Oh,
so it's already got an idea of what is comfortable
for me and what's not. So with that kind of mindset,
the thought is, well, you know, Jay and Cherry paid
this for this trip on this day.

Speaker 5 (17:37):
So even though the actual.

Speaker 4 (17:38):
Fair could be maybe lower, you know, wow, it's out there.
So I mean the possibilities are endless.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Oh without class where they could go.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
With this, And if they're going to base it on individuals,
then what they're telling me is, Jay, we're going to
look at your spending habbits, We're going to look at
your tribal preferences. We're gonna blah blah blah blah blah,
and that's the package you're going to be presented. No,
I want to be able to look across the way
and you know, see what's the best fare that I
can give, schedule those types of things. But we all

(18:08):
have different travel patterns and as a result, sometimes it's
how you pay for your ticket, or how far in
advance you make your reservation, or do you fly one
way around trip More often than that, I mean, there's
so many factors that go into you know, the the behind.

Speaker 5 (18:23):
The scenes.

Speaker 4 (18:25):
Logistics, if you will, of someone's travel. Yeah, habits that
a lot of this stuff can be fed into this
artificial intelligence that can better match me for what I'm
looking for, which, sadly, I think my opinion could cause
me sometimes to overpay for something I shouldn't well.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Exactly, And I suppose ano the scenario you painted where
they're using AI on an individual passenger basis, I could
be sitting in the room right next to you on
my computer, I have a different travel in an airline usage.
I've paid less or more than you. I could plug
the same flight, same day, departure, same flight, and end
up with a higher price ticket than you, even though

(19:04):
we're doing at the same time, in the same.

Speaker 5 (19:05):
Room, on the same flight, same day.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, yeph wow.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
Which can also be the case because a lot of
times people will contact me and said, Jay, you know,
I found a flight to this country for this price.

Speaker 5 (19:18):
What do you think.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
I'm thinking, Oh, it's probably gone by now, because a
lot of times those prices there might be three seats
when you check availability, and it's there because you have
last seat availability on most of the online systems you're
using with the airline and yeah, there is only one
seat left or two seats left or whatever, so it's
grab it as you can. So I'm used to people

(19:39):
paying different fares. What I'm not used to is the
computer looking at me saying, here's Jay's travel history and
matching something with that that may not be my best interest.

Speaker 5 (19:50):
Now.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
You know, Delta again does a lot of things, right,
They make a ton of money. They recently had some
good news on earnings and some of their future outlook
and things, and they're kind of the exception to the
rule right now within the transportation field.

Speaker 5 (20:04):
So if Delta does this, look.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
For other airlines, Oh yeah, well a hamstring running in
that direction to get there with.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
The dominoes fall. All right?

Speaker 2 (20:12):
For those who are flying today, what's it look like
in terms of air traveling hub delays.

Speaker 4 (20:16):
We've had a good morning, which means if you catch
that first light out in the morning, as I like
to do, off to a good start. But a lot
of the rain is headed towards Boston is going to
give us issues, and of course the Gulf Coaster is
getting soaked today. But from a hub standpoint, we should
be okay. But those afternoon aggravating pop up thunderstorms could
happen anywhere, which could cause some problems with Brian. All

(20:37):
in all, it's going to be a pretty good day
to fly, but a day of turbulence. If you are
going to be flying nothing dangerous, just keep your seat
belt about you so that you just don't kiss the
ceiling when.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
You weren't expecting it.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Amen to that day, Ralf. Thank you as always for
your time with my listeners and me every Thursday. I
look for to next Thursday and another discussion and between
now and then, as always you and your better half
that's the health and enjoy you the rest of your week.

Speaker 5 (21:00):
I'll keep up the good work, my friend.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Thank you, Thanks brother. Always a pleasure eight fifty five
fifty five care Steve Talk Station. What a pleasure having
Congressman Warren Davidson on the program. We talked about the
Recisions package, We talked about Ukraine and giving them weapons.
We talked about defense spending and is he behind Thomas
Messey's effort to get the Epstein files out. Steve Gooden
broke down the whole Biden pardon problem, multiple layers and

(21:21):
issues with regard to that, but excellent analysis says always
from our legal expert Steve Gooden, who is also running
for Cincinni City Council as a charter right He got
the endorsement of the Charter Committee and he's got some
great ideas. Vote Steve Gooden will have him on to
talk about that more between now and November, plus, of
course my conversation with Jay Radler. Find it all at
fifty five krec dot com and get your iHeart mediapp WI.

(21:42):
You're over there so you can listen to all the
content wherever you happen to be with your smart device.
Joe Stracker, Executive producer, thank you for all that you do.
Couldn't do it without you, my friend. Have a great day,
and folks, I hope you have a great day as well.
Don't go way. Glenn Beck is coming right up.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
News happens fast, Stay up to date at the top
of the hour.

Speaker 5 (22:00):
We're moving very quickly.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Fifty five KRC the talk station.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
This re