IHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff talks about the week in aviation

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Channel I wifle cash variably cloudy today seventy seven for
the high end, an opportunity for some isolator and getting
at noon and between June five, I have a window. There
a few clouds lingering around over nine fifty seven for
the log got a sunny gay tomorrow, seventy eight fifty
four overnight with some clouds, and seventy six the high on.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Saturdays with the sunny sky fifty four right now traffic time.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
From the UCL Traanthics Center.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
Trust the same team for your care that keeps the
UC bear Cats on the field. Count on U see
Health Orthopedic Sandsports Medicine no matter the injury visit U
see health dot com. Southbound seventy five continues slow out
of Evendale down to the lateral. Then an accident at
the Western Hills Viaduct slows traffic from above Hoppel. There's
a second wreck in south seventy five just before.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
The bridge right shoulder.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
They just cleared the wreck southbound four seventy one on
the bridge. Chuck Ingram on fifty five KR see the
talk station.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Eight thirty a T G I T thank god it Thursday.
At this time every week we get iHeartMedia aviation expert
Jay Ratlif. I thoroughly enjoy our conversations. Always interesting and
uh sometimes it fuels with a little bit of levity,
which is a nice diversion from the heavy stuff we
talk about during the preceding hours. Jay Rattler, welcome back, man.

(01:20):
I love talking to you.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
Hey, good morning. It's always it's always a thrill to
be here. You and I do about two thousands of
these segments a year across the country, and it's uh,
I have more fun here because we tend to get
into some some topics a little deeper than other places.
Plus I don't have to feed you stuff. You you
were constantly leading the conversation. That always makes it always

(01:42):
makes it enjoyable, and we seem to have a lot
more fun.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Oh yeah, well it's free form. I'm learning something you know,
and you're you're explaining things, and uh, I I enjoy
I like to engage in the in the in the
conversation and talk about things I don't know anything about
because I want to get enlightened and learn something. You're
the man with all the information we need to know
about airlines and air travel and air issues, and you're
also an expert in stock trading as well, so we

(02:06):
can go down that road from time to time.

Speaker 5 (02:08):
Adie, I'm mucky knowing being good at just two things
in life.

Speaker 6 (02:11):
I'm good with that.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, yeah, I will say the two things I'm good at.
Just gonna let that go front Frontier Airlines. What's the story.
Is there such a thing as a forty nine dollars
air fare?

Speaker 6 (02:24):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (02:24):
Yeah, yeah, and those are introductory fairs. What's happening is
Spirit Airlines, as we know, is kind of on borrowed time,
if you will. The CEO came out said, look, we've
got maybe years worth of cash, and they he updated
the investors as they are required to do, letting them
know if there's issues of concern, and of course Frontier

(02:44):
is thinking, well, you know, we'd like to have some
of those customers. So they launched twenty new routes that
are directly in competition with Spirit, going after Spirit Airlines customers.
And when they launched those routes, they're offering some of
the initial fares at forty nine dollars a pop.

Speaker 6 (03:02):
Now keep in mind.

Speaker 5 (03:03):
That that's the airfare if you have luggage and you
want a special seat assignment. Things of this nature is
going to be more than that, and not the entire
plane is going to be forty nine dollars fares. These
are inventory controlled, which means maybe the first twenty percent
of the aircraft might be sold at forty nine, the
next fifteen percent at fifty nine, the next seventy nine,
and so on.

Speaker 6 (03:22):
And so forth.

Speaker 5 (03:23):
But they're going after Spirit because they recognize, you know,
those customers maybe on advanced bookings, Brian aren't entirely comfortable
with the fact on whether that's Spirit's going to be
here next.

Speaker 6 (03:34):
Year, next spring break, or whatever, oh might happen to be.

Speaker 5 (03:38):
And the irony of it all is it was Spirit
in Frontier three years ago that made the announcements that
they were going to merge and they would have become
an incredibly successful, mega low cost carrier. And that's when
Spirit got courted by Jet Blue, as we've talked about,
and jet Blue offered more money and Spirit said, well,
I'll see you later, Frontier, and out the door they skipped,

(03:59):
only to have that denied by the Department of Justice
over anti competition, which was the right call. And of
course Spirit think goes limping back to Frontier saying, hey,
will you take me back?

Speaker 6 (04:08):
And Frontiers says.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
No, And now we got Frontier going after Spirit Airlines customers.
So yeah, if they had to do over in life,
I suspect that Spirit would have gone another route on
that merger with Frontier.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Well, what's this going to mean for the air trail
if I mean Spirit, If it's inevitable, maybe it is
already baked into the cake that they are going to
go out of business. I mean that obviously beneficial for
Frontier given that they're trying to expedite that outcome.

Speaker 5 (04:35):
It would be for them and a lot of the
other low cost carriers and even regional leg legacy carriers
that are in the same market. But overall, from kind
of the big pictures side of things, anytime we have
reduction in low cost seats, it's a bad thing because
that means we have less competition and a lot of
a lot of markets. And what I love is the
flood the market with low cost fares so that these

(04:57):
larger legacy carriers of the United Delta, so those even
Southwest and others, are forced to compete with some of
these low prices.

Speaker 6 (05:04):
And that's always.

Speaker 5 (05:05):
Good for consumers because as you know, and you know,
you've talked about for decades about the winning side of
things when there's competition in anything. And of course it
was thanks to President Ford that gave us competition in
the airline industry when he deregulated the industry in nineteen
seventy eight. So when we're enjoying some of the cheapest

(05:28):
airfare ever that we've seen in the history of commercial
jet travel, even with inflation calculated in we can thank
President Carter for that because it was actually President Carter
in nineteen seventy eight that gave us the Deregulation Act
that you know, in essence opened up competition to the airline.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Industry, which ultimately, over time, and it took too long,
came to the CVEG because that was like the worst
place in the entire country to fly in and out,
and we had no competition.

Speaker 5 (05:55):
We did not because Delta initially had a hub in
Atlanta in Atlanta and Delta in Memphis. In Atlanta, those
two hubs were too close together. You can't have two
distribution centers if.

Speaker 6 (06:06):
You will, that close.

Speaker 5 (06:06):
So Delta knew they had to take the Memphis hub
somewhere towards the northeast and of course they picked Cincinnati
and the early eighties and built that up. Obviously absent
of any competition, they could charge what they want. They
had comm Air here as their feed or airline, that
was the business airline, and they could charge incredibly high
business fares, and that made Cincinnati the most profitable hub

(06:31):
Delta had ever seen. And of course, when Delta then
bought com Air, which was a move that I think
they spent two billion dollars on, the wonderful eggheads in
Delta's headquarters said, well, what we need to do is
make comm Air an airline where we do the inventory
controlled fares on there, where we offer discounts and like

(06:51):
we do in the bigger planes. And my friends at
Comma Air and management said no, no, no, no, you can't
do that. You can't do that with fifty seats. It's
got to be business fares. That's how we were built.
And Delta of course said, we know what we're doing,
We've done this before. And of course Comra went right
down the tubes and they couldn't sell comm Air for
five hundred million dollars a few years later with what.

Speaker 6 (07:11):
They had done to it.

Speaker 5 (07:12):
So you know, when you see airlines disappear as we've had,
it means fewer seats, and fewer seats always mean higher fares,
and especially that's.

Speaker 6 (07:21):
The case if we see any of these.

Speaker 5 (07:22):
Low cost carriers go away, and if Spirit does leave,
and it's too early to see it would be bad
for the industry. You might see them absorbed by another airline.
And I think that's a more likely consideration because you
and I've talked about if you want a Boeing aircraft
or a new air bus, you put the order in
and we'll see in six years.

Speaker 6 (07:41):
Right.

Speaker 5 (07:41):
But if you buy an airline like Spirit, you've got
all their airbus airplanes now right there.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
All the inventory comes with the purchase price. More with
Jay Ratlife, We're going to find out. Hey, listen, turn
about to fair play. A flight attendant slapped a passenger.
Litigation ensued that one plus others with Jay Ratliff, It's
eight thirty seven, be right back fifty five karc Edy
Talk Station. Jay Ratliff, has I heard media aviation experts
moving over This is an interesting twist it should I

(08:08):
thought passengers were hitting flight attendants. Jay, that's what we
usually hear about read about. This is the other way around,
resulting in a lawsuit being filed Jay.

Speaker 5 (08:16):
It is, and we're getting one side of the story.
But the way it's going right now is that there
was a Delta passenger that was on a I think
it was in Atlanta to Fresno flight. Flight was just
in the early stages of the flight when a passenger
apparently was asking for some water for his son, who
was crying at the time, and apparently there was kind

(08:38):
of a verbal altercation that led to the flight attendant
per the passenger, slapping the man, and his attorney says
that it was so loud that it could be heard
through noise canceling headphones of passengers that were around that
we don't know if that's the case or not.

Speaker 6 (08:53):
We we'll wait and see.

Speaker 5 (08:54):
Flight attendant's been placed on administrative leave, obviously pending the
the outlook the investigation of all this. But the lawyer
is saying that the passenger is going to be suming Delta,
demanding that they have some sensitivity training that goes up
to every single employee, and also he'd like one day's

(09:15):
worth of Delta's profits his compensation.

Speaker 6 (09:19):
Now.

Speaker 5 (09:19):
Delta last year made three point five billion dollars so
you divide that by three sixty five. He's asking for
about nine and a half million dollars.

Speaker 6 (09:27):
We'll see if he gets it.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
That seems to be a big ask.

Speaker 5 (09:30):
Well, if you know, you got to ask big, you
got to ask big. So if they dart, you decided,
you know how, it works much better than me.

Speaker 6 (09:37):
What am I saying?

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Everything included the kitchen sink to start with, he have
lots of room to racket to death. So you haggle
on the end of the middle of the guy ends
up with what four and a half million dollars?

Speaker 5 (09:47):
Yeah, I guess he'll have to settle for that, and
then the attorney takes one How much would the attorney get.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
On something like that, Uh, typically a third?

Speaker 5 (09:55):
Okay, yeah, he still have a chunk of change, so
you know. But the thing is, if the flight attendant
did in fact strike a passenger, which is totally, totally,
totally unacceptable, it'll be a learning opportunity for Dealt and
all the other flight attendants and things of this nature.
Because I've told you before at the airport we could restrain,
we could never strike. And it's you just you can

(10:18):
never take that step because you never know what the
passengers are going through, you know what kind of day
they're having. Even if they're a jerk three sixty five
twenty four to seven and deserve to be slapped, perhaps
you still can't do it.

Speaker 6 (10:30):
So we'll see where this one goes.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Clearly just an illustration that everybody has a bad day,
including the flight attendants. Yes, all right, Alaska Airlines go
into facial recognition technology.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
But this is for baggage.

Speaker 5 (10:45):
Yeah, the baggage kioks drops. It's where you could. They've
got a place that you can go to have your
bage checked. It's a separate line, and most of the
time they've got them at the airport with agents. You know,
if you've got your reservation tickets and everything, you.

Speaker 6 (10:58):
Just need your bags check.

Speaker 5 (10:59):
You've got a separate line to keep you away from
everybody else that needs more time.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
And so that's the point at which the agent asks
you if there's any lithium ion devices in your bag
before stowing them in the airplane. Sorry I'm jumping ahead
a little.

Speaker 5 (11:13):
Biteah, This is at the ticket counter. This is also
at the ticket counter, but that kiosk that they have
implanted is going to ask you the same sort of thing.

Speaker 6 (11:21):
Just like if you're mailing something.

Speaker 5 (11:23):
At the post office from one of the kiosk and
they've got the question out who reads that stuff? But
you say no in a way you go. But they're
putting these facial recognitions kiosk up at Portland and Seattle.
And the thought behind it, Brian, is that a facial
recognition means you come up, have your face scanned, and
within two seconds.

Speaker 6 (11:42):
Boom if they pull you up.

Speaker 5 (11:43):
The bag tags are are printed and slapped on the
bags and where you go. They're selling it as though
this is going to make.

Speaker 6 (11:49):
Your travels easier.

Speaker 5 (11:51):
It's going to allow you to kind of get through
the process in a faster fashion. And facial recognition is
right now growing at airports across the country. Airlines are
using them at ticket counters for checking in at these
bag kiosks. We're going to be seeing them at the
TSA checkpoints. We're eventually going to see him at the
gate because airlines have designs of having a gate area

(12:12):
with no agents whatsoever, and facial recognition to be used
for all the boarding. Now, how that's going to work
out logistically, I don't know all of the answers, but
that's the end game that they're after. You have a
lot of passengers who are saying, Jay, I'm not comfortable
with that. And right now, airlines are allowing us to
opt out of any facial recognition because there's people that
say I will never ever ever agree to it, to

(12:33):
which I smile and say, well, if you've ever walked
into a casino or an airport or any major sporting event,
I guarantee you you've been a part of facial recognition somewhere,
my friends. So, but you know, some people don't want
to voluntarily get involved with it. That's fine, but airlines
are selling it is convenience, but you and I know
it's their opportunity to reduce their personnel costs. And that's

(12:57):
like when those kiosks came out where you could check
yourselves in and a lot of a lot of agents.
We're so excited to show passengers how to use them.
And they said this is great, Ja, because I'm gonna
have a shorter line, and I said.

Speaker 6 (13:07):
No, you're not.

Speaker 5 (13:07):
You're gonna do no job because when everybody's checking them yep.
But they you know, that's what airlines are after. If
they can eliminate that cost, they're going to do it.
That's why automation is discussed as far as in pilots
using one pilot or no pilot down the road, trying
to take advantage of it. And the more that we
get comfortable with AI and a lot of the other
things that are taking place, these advancements are going to

(13:30):
not only continue, but they're going to accelerate. Delta is
already using the artificial intelligence and pricing and they've been
doing it for a few years based on your travel
habits and what you're willing to pay, and that's what
you're going to pay. So it's not something I'm thrilled with,
but sadly that's the direction we're going.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yes, indeed it is. And of course electronic device is
our problem. We've talked about that before. You thoroughly freaked
me out on that one. We have another one. We'll
talk about that. Plus hub delays. Just a minute here
it's a forty six right back with Jay Ratlift fifty
five car the talk station.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Imagine what it would feel like one more time for
the Channeline onether forecasts.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
We have variably cloudy today, isolated rain possible between noon
and five. Today's high seventy seven tonight down to fifty
seven with just a few clowns. A sunny day tomorrow
and the high seventy eight, few clouds over night again
fifty four and Saturday, another sunny day seventy six.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Fifty six. Right now, time for final traffic.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
From the UCL Traumptics Center.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Trusts the same team for your care that keeps the
UC Bearcats on the field. Count on u SEE Health
Orthopedics sand Sports Medicine no matter the injury, visit u
sehealth dot Com or problems. Southbound seventy five. An accident
at the lateral blocks the left lane, keeping traffic slow
through Wachland. Then there's a reck southbound seventy five left

(14:50):
hand side near the Western Hills Viaduct that also slows
tramping southbound seventy one. Break lights started two to seventy
five to Red Bank. Chuck king ramon fifty the talk station.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
It's a forty nine almost a fifty fifty five Karrosity
talk station and Brian Thomas, a Jay rattler. If I
heard we the aviation expert moving over to the land.
It's American Airlines had a flight diverted again. Another one
of these lithium ion battery fires. Jay, this is really disturbing, man.

Speaker 6 (15:19):
It is.

Speaker 5 (15:20):
This is an American Airlines flight left Philadelphia headed to Phoenix,
and about an hour into the flight, one of these
electronic devices started to overheat, caught fire. Flight attendants had
to respond, They took care of it, flight declares an emergency,
they landed a nearby airport. We've had twenty to thirty
here in the United States. You factor in the ones
that are happening around the world. More than once a

(15:41):
week one of these things are taking place, and it's
obvious that something there's a problem, and you know, we
had a situation with this.

Speaker 6 (15:50):
I think when the Dreamliner came out.

Speaker 5 (15:52):
They had a battery issue that was causing batteries to
overheat on the Dreamliner when it was first introduced, and
they had to change and modify that aircraft to make
it safer to operate. And we've got to do something
here that's going to do more than just count on
the flight attendants who go through an incredible amount of
training as a firefighter when they go through their certification process,

(16:15):
because we're counting on them to respond and if one
of these devices get stuck into a seat starts to
overheat and catch on fire. You have fifteen minutes get
that plane on the ground, and any smoke or anything
fumes in that aircraft can't be vented out, so to speak,
if you will, in a very fast fashion. So that

(16:36):
means that it's a very very difficult thing that happens.
So it's dangerous, and we've got to do something about it.
And I'm honest with you, Brian, I'm tired of talking
about it because every one of these, I think, gets
a step closer to something horrific taking place.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
No I know, and we've talked about that before, and
you know you had pointed out and this is what's
got me weirded out, the idea that you know, you
go up to the gay and you get ready to
board the airplane, your bag is either too big to
fit in the overhead compartment, you shouldn't brought it there
in the first PLACEE should have been stowed away. And
that's when they take it, and they stole it right
directly on the plane after asking you if there's one
of these devices in there, Well.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Maybe you forgot, maybe you lie, maybe you don't want
to dig through the back.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
But if it's in the hold of the plane, we're
all dead.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
Well nobody, Well, we have smoke detectors in the cargo
compartments that would notify the flight crew that there's a
fire or possible fire that's taking place. But then again
you're right back to that fifteen minute mark, and well, yeah, exactly,
aircraft have fire suppression systems in the cargo hold. But

(17:40):
the problem is these liftium battery fires burn at such
a heat they're not as effective. So you've got so
many problems that they're easy to identify. The problem is
we don't have an easy fix because you can't tell
people you can't fly without your your telephones, your cell
phones and things of this nature. And people that bring
their iPads and things. Is in our aertainment to watch

(18:01):
movies in different things. Airlines like that because now they
don't have to have the entertainment screens on the back
of a seat. Because it's less weight, less expense, less fuel.
It's great, please bring your own device. And now that
we've got these issues, so I don't mean to scare people,
but it is something, and it doesn't prevent me from flying.
I mean, I'll take my mom my, wife, our grandkids kids.

(18:25):
We'll get on a flight and I won't be that
concerned about it that it'll keep me from flying. But
believe me, if I'm on a plane and one of
these things starts to happen where there's an overheated situation,
I'm making sure the flight attendants know about it immediately
so they can a notify the captain and be take
care of the situation in the cabin before it becomes
out of hand.

Speaker 6 (18:45):
So again, these.

Speaker 5 (18:46):
Flight attendants that so many people put down or don't
give the adequate amount of respect to, these men and
women are doing even more than they've ever done before
because now they have so many more of these things
that are taking place for.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Runs a matter of time.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Jay Ratliff, before we part company, always in on hub delays,
what's going on as far as as far as air
travel looking today, It looks.

Speaker 5 (19:07):
Today, you know a lot of rain across the country,
but I think Detroit's going to be the only major
hub that's going to be impacted. But because of all
that rain across the country, we're gonna see quite a
bit of turbulence. Not dangerous, but uncomp well, it's dangerous
if you don't know your seatbelt on, but it's just
uncomp Please keep the seat belts on. Me with fifty
or so people a year that are seriously seriously injured

(19:28):
because an aircraft that's cruising along suddenly hits turbulence and
the next thing you know, yeah, you're hitting the.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Ceiling without notice. Well, I remember some weird turbulence experience
over the years, jay rutlift. That is sound advice. Keep
the damn seat belt on, jay rattleft look for it
next Thursday. Already, I appreciate the time you spoke my
listeners of me an enjoyable segment. It is, and we'll
do it again next Thursday. Between now and then, best
of health and loved you and your better half.

Speaker 6 (19:53):
I appreciate it, my friend, Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Brother coming on with an eight fifty five. You can
get a chance. In Dave Williams Taxpayer Protection Alliance, we
talked about con Chris loving earmarks most notably, believe it
or not, even members of the Freedom Caucus talk about
reducing drug prices and the Patients Act three forty B.
Paul at my wife, who's a three forty B specialist
list keating for counsels. She was on for a half hour,

(20:15):
got a great conversation with her. I really hope she
gets elected again to well gets elected for since i
City Council November. John Barrett, President's CEO Western and Southern
Information about the WB and fireworks and thanks to Western
and Southern for sponsoring them, and of course my conversation
with Jay Rattliffe podcast fifty five cares dot com. Hope
you can get your iHeartMedia app while you're there to
listen to all the iHeartMedia content throughout the week whenever

(20:38):
you happen to want to listen to it. Joe Strecker,
Executive producer, thank you as always for the work that
you do on the fifty five Caresee Morning Show. Wouldn't
happen without you, folks. You hope you have a wonderful day.
Tune in tomorrow of course Tech Friday, but becoming a
regularly scheduled guest on the morning show. Corey Bowman, runner
from Mayor. I'm sure I'll have a few things to say,
most notably about crime in the city. He'll be on

(20:58):
tomorrow as well. Stick around Glenbeck's coming up.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Today's top headlines coming up at the top of the hour.

Speaker 6 (21:06):
The news changes every minute.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
Fifty five KRC the talkstation.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
This report is