Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
C Detalk station. It is a very happy Thursday, as
it always is at this time because we get to
talk to unless he's on vacation like last week or out.
I heart media aviation expert Jay Roratliff. Welcome back, my friend.
You know I love talking with you.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Man, you take one vacation in a blue moon. Somebody
smacking your chop. God, be back.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I can't rick. I don't think we had anybody filling
in for this segment in the last week's show, so
you sort of leave me to my own devices. And
I'd much rather have a guest on. And I love
our conversations because again they typically are light. But let's
start with one that's not so light. Oh my god,
we're all gonna die. According to the US Travel Association president,
a guy named Joff Freeman. He said, US Travel Association,
(00:45):
this is costing US one billion dollars in a counterweek.
Travel is invation, longer tsa line, flight delays, airports reducing flights,
entire controlled covers going dark longer. This drags on the
worst cascade. The damage will be for local communities, for
small businesses, and for the country. His groups, US economy
lost one or losing one billion dollars per week because
of those issues. Yet Willie Wallace, a director and general
(01:08):
airline lobby group the International Air Transportations Association, said no,
there's been no significant disruption. There has been no stop
in the recruitment of new air traffic controllers. There were
no significant impacts to date. So who's right on this one? Jay?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm assuming the former did not vote for Donald Trump.
That's just going out there on a limb. But the
last few days I've had several TV and radio interviews
where people are freaking out over the fact that the
Burbank Airport had no air traffic controllers and we had
to pivot and have another air traffic control center take
(01:44):
care of the arrivals and departures at that airport. It's
as though this guy is falling. It happened in Nashville
where we had a shortage. So and of course I've
got my referee shirt on the whistle and I'm blowing
a time out trying to get these people to stop
so I can tell them that in the last nine months, Brian,
that's happened a thousand times, right.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, and didn't Burbank close a bunch of times in
events of this as well, because it does.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
It does, and we've got redundancies, we've got cistems in place,
procedures in place, and it's like, wait a minute, if
this is such a big time issue, now where were
you the other thousand times it happened in just the
last nine months. So it's an obvious to me and
not surprisingly moved by people that are trying to push
(02:31):
back on the administration saying that you know, this is
endangering the lives of everybody who flies, and it's a
horrific time to fly, and all this is taking place,
and I'm saying, no, it's being brought upon because we
have a shortage of bear traffic controllers, period, and that's
why all of those thousand occurrences took place, and that's
why it's happening now. Now it's a little bit different now,
(02:52):
and Brian, I can certainly understand. You have a lot
of men and women who are going to get a
partial paycheck on Tuesday the fourteenth, and then two weeks
after that on the twenty eight they're going to get
hit no paycheck, and these air traffic controllers are being
asked to show up to work and their pay is
to be delayed, and some of them are saying, and
I know this to be the case. I've got bills
(03:13):
to pay, I've got to put food on the table,
and I don't have six weeks of income saved up.
I do have a secondary job. I can go do that.
I'll get paid right now for so I'm gonna call
in sick even though I don't want to, and I'm
gonna go work where I know I'm gonna get paid
so I've got the money to survive on because that's
what I'm forced to do. So I'm certainly not gonna
(03:35):
fault the men and women if that's the route they've
got to go to. The air traffic controllers, they're already overworked,
they're being forced into overtime, they're morale is down, they're
using equipment that is just beyond archaic. So there's a
lot of things right there that I do understand. Now.
I wish they wouldn't do it because that puts a
strain on the people that they're working with. But when
(03:56):
it comes down to should I be there for my
teammates that I'm working with, or do I need to
make sure I've got food on the table for my kids.
I'm sorry, I know which way that's going to go
each and every time. So the bottom line is we're
six weeks away from the busiest travel week of the year.
We've got to get this resolved now so that we
don't get into November and start having an issue with
(04:18):
uh oh, having this type of a scenario take place
when it's the busiest travel time, that's when we will
have a problem.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
We'll continue with iHeartMedia aviation expert Jay Ratliff, including a
comment or two on West Jet figuring out yet another
way to anger its passengers eight thirty five Right now
fifty five k c detalk station see a thirty seven
fifty five car cdtalk station. iHeart meaty aviation expert Jay
Ratliff definitely has. We are fortunate to have them every
week on the thirty five CARSCEN Morning Show beginning at
(04:47):
eight thirty through the end of the program. And let's
pivot over to cigarettes smuggling. Oh my god, the Russians
are shutting down airspace. It's the Chinese Communist Party with
a drone strike. Oh, maybe it isn't. Maybe it's people
who don't want to pay taxes on cigarettes. This is
kind of crazy. Jay I saw the reporting on this
when it first came out, A cigarette delay.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
You know, I'm trying to figure out what delay code
we could have used with this. But he had an
airport Lithuania shut down because of the fact that it
was unsafe for aircraft to approach the airport because they
had I think it was twenty five balloons, large ones
that had been lifted off that were in essence carrying
cigarettes that were being smuggled, and it affected about thirty
(05:30):
some flights that were coming in. They said thousands of
passengers were impacted by this because the fact that they
had so many balloons in that airspace that represented a
problem for approaching aircraft. And it's you know, I think
the only other bizarre kind of story would be like
if you went back a gazillion years ago to the
man that put a bunch of balloons, healing balloons onto
(05:53):
his lunch chair and lifted himself up.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I remember that and up and up, Brian.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I think he got up to like fifteen thousand feets.
I'm crazy in a lawn chair.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Did a big Did he have an air rifle with
him to shoot the balloons?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
One of the time, way that way he could come down.
His wife's on the radio tell him to come down.
And look. I was a skydiver for a bunch of years,
but I'm not a big fan of heights. So the
thought is going up in a lawn chair to any
altitude like that, I mean, I'm sorry, that's just crazy.
(06:27):
But yes, this, the cigarette smuggling balloon situation that shut
down an airport is certainly one of the reasons. I'll
never tell you that that you know, I've seen it
all because that you never underestimate people in what they're
capable of doing ever.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
No doubt about it. And I guess it's kind of funny.
That was an extraordinarily low budget smuggling effort, considering they
just used helium balloons. If they had gotten an actual drone,
they probably would have been far more successful getting the
cigarettes to the location they wanted to send them to.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That's kind of hard to control where a balloon goes
to something, I know, yeah, and where they're going to
land and such. So I guess it's a crapshoot which
way things are going to go. But you know, who knows.
You probably laugh at the people that were doing it
because they may not have had well, they had enough
intelligence to get the thing's airbornes. I got to give
them credit for that.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Okay, And you're how many? I hate to put you
on the spot, but I know how would you are?
You don't have to say it. Let me how many
decades have you been in the aviation business field, expertise,
knowledge and that kind of thing. How long have you
been following closely aviation?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, I started working in nineteen eighty one, in October. Okay,
so I've been as I've been associated with the airline
industry going back to just after deregulation took place in
nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
On planes, in planes, in management, and variety of different roles.
You've seen it all, So I guess that's the predicate
for my question.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Not all, but yeah, Well, like.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Cigarette smuggling, balloons say down airports, every day is a
new day with that caveat. I see yet another are
headline drunk New Jersey's sisters arrested after meltdown for being
kicked off Frontier Airline's flight and attacking a worker. And
this is all on body camera footage. Now, this is
one among a seemingly endless number of incidents like this
(08:15):
where people get out of hand, they start getting all
punchy and fighty and belligerent and they get chucked off
from an airline. Is it just the internet and pervasive
ubiquitous nature of cell phone cameras that we are aware
of this, or has this a newer phenomenon? Is this
becoming far more frequent because people getting kind of disrespectful
(08:38):
of authority figures and really not have any sense of
ethics and morality. That is a common problem across the
board that appears to be growing. I'm just wondering, in
so far as airline incidents, is it a growing phenomenon.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I think to a certain degree it is, but it's not.
I mean, we were dealing with it back in the
eighties rights in the nineties, because we would always have
individuals that had a disrespect for authority, didn't want to
be told what to do, and different types of things
where they were just absolute, very difficult people to work with.
And sadly, sometimes that took place when the aircraft was airborne.
(09:14):
A lot of times it was alcohol involved, and you
had a lot of situations that required us to kind of,
you know, pivot with regards to what was going on
with the aircraft, the operations, or things of this nature.
It becomes much more of an issue now because with
the advent of everybody having the ability or to record
what's happening and then post it immediately, where a situation
(09:37):
goes viral, not once it hits the mainstream press, but
once it hits social media and it's shared around the world,
it becomes much more of an issue that people are
aware of. And sadly, we're seeing, you know, more and
more examples of this front and center where you've got
these individuals that are telling uniform flight attendant they're not
going to do what they're being told to do, which
is a federal offense, or causing a situation where an
(10:00):
aircraft is delayed in departing or creates a diversion, or
any of these other things. And Brian, it's when you
have individuals that attack passengers, shove flight attendants, rush the cockpit,
whatever it might happen to be. These people are clearly
in individuals that should not be flying on any US
carrier in the country. Sadly, these two individuals from Frontier
(10:22):
will be banned for life from flying Frontier, thank you.
They should be, but they're free to fly any other carrier.
And you and I have talked about this so many
tis why are we going to allow knowingly these individuals
to fly on other carriers? And there needs to be
some sort of consequence if you act up, if it's
an argument, you're having a bad day. Believe now, I
(10:43):
don't want to ban you from flying, But if I
shove a flight attendant or I attack a passenger, I
should be you know, putting time out fly wise for
like three to five years. I don't think that's anything
that's outside the the you know, it would be considered
extreme here, but airlines won't do it because it costs
them money to track it, and that's why they say
(11:04):
that they refuse to do it.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We got a no fly list, Jay ry Loo. If
if they can track no fly lists, which obviously are
bigger and contain people who don't deserve to be on
the no fly list because of errors and government, they
can have a list like this. Is this something the
FAA could mandate if they chose to do so, Oh.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
They could, they could. The problem is the airlines tell
their government what they're going to do instead of the
other way around, and We're in a very presidential administration
friendly environment here where everybody gets along and everybody kind
of can push things. And this is not the administration,
even though I'm a big fantom of the Trump administration
(11:40):
what he's doing. They're not going to be held accountable
and to be forced to do this type of thing,
even though they should. And that's why when I see
all these CEOs from airlines talking about how much they
care about their passengers and employees, I just want to
throw up because I'm thinking, stop it, because you're saying
one thing and then doing something completely different. If you
(12:00):
really cared about your employees and you really wanted to
protect them, you would spend whatever money it took to
keep these individuals that have been convicted of these types
of actions off of your flight. And if it happened
on a Southwest flight, you're making sure they don't fly
you on American or Delta or United or South South
trus whatever it is. But we're not doing it. During
(12:21):
the pandemic, the airlines were asked early on to provide
and track information and give it to the government, and
they said, well, we don't have the main power to
do it. And they said, well, this could help us
actually prevent the spread of COVID if we could have
this information. I'm sorry we're not going to be able
to do it again. The airlines telling the government what
they're going to do instead of the other way around.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
That's amazing. And to your point earlier, I don't care
how bad a day you're having. Nothing can justify you
assaulting or battering another human being that has no connection
with your bad day. Well and more with, we're going
to find out how many ways you can anger a customer.
West yet creating a new way to anger its air
traffic passengers plus hub delays, are going to find out
(13:05):
how good it is to travel today. More with Jay
Ratliffe after this brief word, these brief words from Portland
if any five ter CD talk station one more time
I heard me the aviation expert Jay Ryloff intentionally held
on the the goofiest and the dumbest for the last Jay,
you gave me a heads up on this one yesterday.
My reactions is like, you've got to be kidding me.
(13:26):
Tell them what west Jet's doing now.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Well they have. They've decided to give passengers the opportunity
to take advantage of a premium seating option on their flights.
Of course that's.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
First class, right, that's first class premium seating.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
They kind of I think read find the word premium Brian.
In essence, if you want to seat the reclines, they're
going to charge you more. Now, I mean, we we've
talked about, oh my gosh, what are we charges for oxygen?
It used to be you could take any seat you wanted,
and then they said, you know, people will actually pay
money to get their seats assigned in advance. Okay, And
(14:07):
then they said, you know, some people prefer window seats
over middle seats, so we can start charging them more
for that. You know, some people prefer aisle seats, and
then they decided let's give them a little bit more
leg room, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now here's
how this is going to be sold to the American
traveling public. So many people, the airlines will say, are
having fights over reclining seats and it's really creating a
(14:28):
customer service problem. So us as the airline, we're going
to make sure that we can alleviate those problems. So
we will make every seat on the airplane incapable of reclining.
We'll have them all at this slight angle and everyone
will have the same and nobody can recline it. So
that's how we're going to take better care of our customer.
Of course, ps in behind closed doors. They can now
(14:50):
put an extra two rows on every aircraft so they
can make more revenue. Okay, that's the reason they do it.
So now they're going to say, we're going to give
you some premium seats and on West Jedi, I think
it's twelve seats per seven thirty seven that they're going
to have this on you can actually pay for these
seats for the ability to recline, and that's going to
be an additional service. And it just you know, and
(15:14):
you know, congratulations to them for finding another way to
squeeze more money out of us. Because from a business standpoint,
it's like, you know, we used to check bags and
it didn't cost us a penny. Now we have to
pay for it. We used to actually be able to
carry bags on an airplane, Now we got to pay
for it. We actually used to be able to sit
in the seat that had a little button that could
(15:34):
push us let our seat recline for free. No, now
we're gonna have to pay for it. Now you watch
what's going to happen here. West Jett is the first airline. Yep,
the dom the Leader brother, Buckle up and brace for impact.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
This reminded me of the I think BMWEN the first
automative auto manufacturer. But it's kind of become a popular
thing to equip the cars with all the technology and
then charge you to actually activate it.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
So out.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, so like a heated seat, it's in there, but
you got to pay fifty bucks a month or whatever
under some performance package to make it work. So my
question insofar as the seats are concerned, you mentioned the button.
Are they just going to disable the reclined mechanism so
that saves them having to replace the seats, so the
technologies in there, it's just been blocked out. Or are
(16:24):
they actually going to change the seats out to be fixed.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I don't think they change the seats out. I think
that would make it because it would be too expensive.
But I'll tell you this, as future airplanes are ordered,
you will have airplanes with these seats with the slight
recline that there's no way they can be reclined. And
of course some people have these knee blocker type devices
that you can buy, and I'm not advocating you do this,
(16:47):
and you can actually put it in the seat in
front of you that prevents the seat from reclining. And yeah,
the knee blockers or whatever they're called, if flight attendants
really get upset at us when we use them, because
when somebody tries to recline a seat and can't and
has found out what happened, you know, probably the person
before you put them on. They're not you, But right
(17:07):
it becomes it becomes I'm not suggesting you do this,
but it's it's airlines are getting tired of of, you know,
some of the stuff that flight attendants have to deal with,
and certainly flight attendants are getting tired of being the
referee between people that reclient seats, don't reclined seats and
all this and that, because there's a lot of arguments
and a lot of the low cost carriers have aircraft that, again,
(17:28):
the seas don't recline. They've got a slight recline to them,
and they're not super comfortable seats, but you're not in
them for an extended period of time, and they're lightweight
and they can also put more seats on the airplane.
So that's the case. But when I when I saw that,
I thought, oh, you gotta be kidding me. One I thought,
why didn't I think of that? Because you know it's
(17:50):
something it's so ridiculous. Sure we're going to do it.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
There's a lot of experts I could use on that
was because you're not, say a journy, you didn't think
of that because you would find the concept to be
offensive to the consumer. Anyway, You and I are not
wired deat way brothers.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
No we are not.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
No, we are not as we always Let's talk about
hub delays. What's it looking like out there today for
travel Jay Ratlift.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
This entire week has been a mess because especially with
some weather that's been coming in off the northeast. But
today is difference, and I'm thrilled to say the mess
in the Northeast has gone. Really, if if I was
getting paid for delays, it would be it'd be a
light day because Seattle is about the only airport hub
that's going to be impacted because of weather. Everything else
(18:37):
has been pretty well cleared out. Even I think some
of the turbulent areas where we could be experienced turbulence
have really subsided. So if you pick the day, you
get like a triple gold star because it's just gonna
be an incredible day to fly. You pick the perfect
perfect day to take to this.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Guys love it, we get end on a positive note.
Typically the entire conversation is positive. Jay Ratliffe, love having
you on the show Man. Look forward to next Thursday
with another air traffic or airline report or aviation report,
and as always, I hope you and your better half
have a wonderful day and week
C Detalk station. It is a very happy Thursday, as
it always is at this time because we get to
talk to unless he's on vacation like last week or out.
I heart media aviation expert Jay Roratliff. Welcome back, my friend.
You know I love talking with you.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Man, you take one vacation in a blue moon. Somebody
smacking your chop. God, be back.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I can't rick. I don't think we had anybody filling
in for this segment in the last week's show, so
you sort of leave me to my own devices. And
I'd much rather have a guest on. And I love
our conversations because again they typically are light. But let's
start with one that's not so light. Oh my god,
we're all gonna die. According to the US Travel Association president,
a guy named Joff Freeman. He said, US Travel Association,
(00:45):
this is costing US one billion dollars in a counterweek.
Travel is invation, longer tsa line, flight delays, airports reducing flights,
entire controlled covers going dark longer. This drags on the
worst cascade. The damage will be for local communities, for
small businesses, and for the country. His groups, US economy
lost one or losing one billion dollars per week because
of those issues. Yet Willie Wallace, a director and general
(01:08):
airline lobby group the International Air Transportations Association, said no,
there's been no significant disruption. There has been no stop
in the recruitment of new air traffic controllers. There were
no significant impacts to date. So who's right on this one? Jay?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm assuming the former did not vote for Donald Trump.
That's just going out there on a limb. But the
last few days I've had several TV and radio interviews
where people are freaking out over the fact that the
Burbank Airport had no air traffic controllers and we had
to pivot and have another air traffic control center take
(01:44):
care of the arrivals and departures at that airport. It's
as though this guy is falling. It happened in Nashville
where we had a shortage. So and of course I've
got my referee shirt on the whistle and I'm blowing
a time out trying to get these people to stop
so I can tell them that in the last nine months, Brian,
that's happened a thousand times, right.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, and didn't Burbank close a bunch of times in
events of this as well, because it does.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
It does, and we've got redundancies, we've got cistems in place,
procedures in place, and it's like, wait a minute, if
this is such a big time issue, now where were
you the other thousand times it happened in just the
last nine months. So it's an obvious to me and
not surprisingly moved by people that are trying to push
(02:31):
back on the administration saying that you know, this is
endangering the lives of everybody who flies, and it's a
horrific time to fly, and all this is taking place,
and I'm saying, no, it's being brought upon because we
have a shortage of bear traffic controllers, period, and that's
why all of those thousand occurrences took place, and that's
why it's happening now. Now it's a little bit different now,
(02:52):
and Brian, I can certainly understand. You have a lot
of men and women who are going to get a
partial paycheck on Tuesday the fourteenth, and then two weeks
after that on the twenty eight they're going to get
hit no paycheck, and these air traffic controllers are being
asked to show up to work and their pay is
to be delayed, and some of them are saying, and
I know this to be the case. I've got bills
(03:13):
to pay, I've got to put food on the table,
and I don't have six weeks of income saved up.
I do have a secondary job. I can go do that.
I'll get paid right now for so I'm gonna call
in sick even though I don't want to, and I'm
gonna go work where I know I'm gonna get paid
so I've got the money to survive on because that's
what I'm forced to do. So I'm certainly not gonna
(03:35):
fault the men and women if that's the route they've
got to go to. The air traffic controllers, they're already overworked,
they're being forced into overtime, they're morale is down, they're
using equipment that is just beyond archaic. So there's a
lot of things right there that I do understand. Now.
I wish they wouldn't do it because that puts a
strain on the people that they're working with. But when
(03:56):
it comes down to should I be there for my
teammates that I'm working with, or do I need to
make sure I've got food on the table for my kids.
I'm sorry, I know which way that's going to go
each and every time. So the bottom line is we're
six weeks away from the busiest travel week of the year.
We've got to get this resolved now so that we
don't get into November and start having an issue with
(04:18):
uh oh, having this type of a scenario take place
when it's the busiest travel time, that's when we will
have a problem.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
We'll continue with iHeartMedia aviation expert Jay Ratliff, including a
comment or two on West Jet figuring out yet another
way to anger its passengers eight thirty five Right now
fifty five k c detalk station see a thirty seven
fifty five car cdtalk station. iHeart meaty aviation expert Jay
Ratliff definitely has. We are fortunate to have them every
week on the thirty five CARSCEN Morning Show beginning at
(04:47):
eight thirty through the end of the program. And let's
pivot over to cigarettes smuggling. Oh my god, the Russians
are shutting down airspace. It's the Chinese Communist Party with
a drone strike. Oh, maybe it isn't. Maybe it's people
who don't want to pay taxes on cigarettes. This is
kind of crazy. Jay I saw the reporting on this
when it first came out, A cigarette delay.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
You know, I'm trying to figure out what delay code
we could have used with this. But he had an
airport Lithuania shut down because of the fact that it
was unsafe for aircraft to approach the airport because they
had I think it was twenty five balloons, large ones
that had been lifted off that were in essence carrying
cigarettes that were being smuggled, and it affected about thirty
(05:30):
some flights that were coming in. They said thousands of
passengers were impacted by this because the fact that they
had so many balloons in that airspace that represented a
problem for approaching aircraft. And it's you know, I think
the only other bizarre kind of story would be like
if you went back a gazillion years ago to the
man that put a bunch of balloons, healing balloons onto
(05:53):
his lunch chair and lifted himself up.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I remember that and up and up, Brian.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I think he got up to like fifteen thousand feets.
I'm crazy in a lawn chair.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Did a big Did he have an air rifle with
him to shoot the balloons?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
One of the time, way that way he could come down.
His wife's on the radio tell him to come down.
And look. I was a skydiver for a bunch of years,
but I'm not a big fan of heights. So the
thought is going up in a lawn chair to any
altitude like that, I mean, I'm sorry, that's just crazy.
(06:27):
But yes, this, the cigarette smuggling balloon situation that shut
down an airport is certainly one of the reasons. I'll
never tell you that that you know, I've seen it
all because that you never underestimate people in what they're
capable of doing ever.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
No doubt about it. And I guess it's kind of funny.
That was an extraordinarily low budget smuggling effort, considering they
just used helium balloons. If they had gotten an actual drone,
they probably would have been far more successful getting the
cigarettes to the location they wanted to send them to.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That's kind of hard to control where a balloon goes
to something, I know, yeah, and where they're going to
land and such. So I guess it's a crapshoot which
way things are going to go. But you know, who knows.
You probably laugh at the people that were doing it
because they may not have had well, they had enough
intelligence to get the thing's airbornes. I got to give
them credit for that.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Okay, And you're how many? I hate to put you
on the spot, but I know how would you are?
You don't have to say it. Let me how many
decades have you been in the aviation business field, expertise,
knowledge and that kind of thing. How long have you
been following closely aviation?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, I started working in nineteen eighty one, in October. Okay,
so I've been as I've been associated with the airline
industry going back to just after deregulation took place in
nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
On planes, in planes, in management, and variety of different roles.
You've seen it all, So I guess that's the predicate
for my question.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Not all, but yeah, Well, like.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Cigarette smuggling, balloons say down airports, every day is a
new day with that caveat. I see yet another are
headline drunk New Jersey's sisters arrested after meltdown for being
kicked off Frontier Airline's flight and attacking a worker. And
this is all on body camera footage. Now, this is
one among a seemingly endless number of incidents like this
(08:15):
where people get out of hand, they start getting all
punchy and fighty and belligerent and they get chucked off
from an airline. Is it just the internet and pervasive
ubiquitous nature of cell phone cameras that we are aware
of this, or has this a newer phenomenon? Is this
becoming far more frequent because people getting kind of disrespectful
(08:38):
of authority figures and really not have any sense of
ethics and morality. That is a common problem across the
board that appears to be growing. I'm just wondering, in
so far as airline incidents, is it a growing phenomenon.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I think to a certain degree it is, but it's not.
I mean, we were dealing with it back in the
eighties rights in the nineties, because we would always have
individuals that had a disrespect for authority, didn't want to
be told what to do, and different types of things
where they were just absolute, very difficult people to work with.
And sadly, sometimes that took place when the aircraft was airborne.
(09:14):
A lot of times it was alcohol involved, and you
had a lot of situations that required us to kind of,
you know, pivot with regards to what was going on
with the aircraft, the operations, or things of this nature.
It becomes much more of an issue now because with
the advent of everybody having the ability or to record
what's happening and then post it immediately, where a situation
(09:37):
goes viral, not once it hits the mainstream press, but
once it hits social media and it's shared around the world,
it becomes much more of an issue that people are
aware of. And sadly, we're seeing, you know, more and
more examples of this front and center where you've got
these individuals that are telling uniform flight attendant they're not
going to do what they're being told to do, which
is a federal offense, or causing a situation where an
(10:00):
aircraft is delayed in departing or creates a diversion, or
any of these other things. And Brian, it's when you
have individuals that attack passengers, shove flight attendants, rush the cockpit,
whatever it might happen to be. These people are clearly
in individuals that should not be flying on any US
carrier in the country. Sadly, these two individuals from Frontier
(10:22):
will be banned for life from flying Frontier, thank you.
They should be, but they're free to fly any other carrier.
And you and I have talked about this so many
tis why are we going to allow knowingly these individuals
to fly on other carriers? And there needs to be
some sort of consequence if you act up, if it's
an argument, you're having a bad day. Believe now, I
(10:43):
don't want to ban you from flying, But if I
shove a flight attendant or I attack a passenger, I
should be you know, putting time out fly wise for
like three to five years. I don't think that's anything
that's outside the the you know, it would be considered
extreme here, but airlines won't do it because it costs
them money to track it, and that's why they say
(11:04):
that they refuse to do it.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We got a no fly list, Jay ry Loo. If
if they can track no fly lists, which obviously are
bigger and contain people who don't deserve to be on
the no fly list because of errors and government, they
can have a list like this. Is this something the
FAA could mandate if they chose to do so, Oh.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
They could, they could. The problem is the airlines tell
their government what they're going to do instead of the
other way around, and We're in a very presidential administration
friendly environment here where everybody gets along and everybody kind
of can push things. And this is not the administration,
even though I'm a big fantom of the Trump administration
(11:40):
what he's doing. They're not going to be held accountable
and to be forced to do this type of thing,
even though they should. And that's why when I see
all these CEOs from airlines talking about how much they
care about their passengers and employees, I just want to
throw up because I'm thinking, stop it, because you're saying
one thing and then doing something completely different. If you
(12:00):
really cared about your employees and you really wanted to
protect them, you would spend whatever money it took to
keep these individuals that have been convicted of these types
of actions off of your flight. And if it happened
on a Southwest flight, you're making sure they don't fly
you on American or Delta or United or South South
trus whatever it is. But we're not doing it. During
(12:21):
the pandemic, the airlines were asked early on to provide
and track information and give it to the government, and
they said, well, we don't have the main power to
do it. And they said, well, this could help us
actually prevent the spread of COVID if we could have
this information. I'm sorry we're not going to be able
to do it again. The airlines telling the government what
they're going to do instead of the other way around.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
That's amazing. And to your point earlier, I don't care
how bad a day you're having. Nothing can justify you
assaulting or battering another human being that has no connection
with your bad day. Well and more with, we're going
to find out how many ways you can anger a customer.
West yet creating a new way to anger its air
traffic passengers plus hub delays, are going to find out
(13:05):
how good it is to travel today. More with Jay
Ratliffe after this brief word, these brief words from Portland
if any five ter CD talk station one more time
I heard me the aviation expert Jay Ryloff intentionally held
on the the goofiest and the dumbest for the last Jay,
you gave me a heads up on this one yesterday.
My reactions is like, you've got to be kidding me.
(13:26):
Tell them what west Jet's doing now.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Well they have. They've decided to give passengers the opportunity
to take advantage of a premium seating option on their flights.
Of course that's.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
First class, right, that's first class premium seating.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
They kind of I think read find the word premium Brian.
In essence, if you want to seat the reclines, they're
going to charge you more. Now, I mean, we we've
talked about, oh my gosh, what are we charges for oxygen?
It used to be you could take any seat you wanted,
and then they said, you know, people will actually pay
money to get their seats assigned in advance. Okay, And
(14:07):
then they said, you know, some people prefer window seats
over middle seats, so we can start charging them more
for that. You know, some people prefer aisle seats, and
then they decided let's give them a little bit more
leg room, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now here's
how this is going to be sold to the American
traveling public. So many people, the airlines will say, are
having fights over reclining seats and it's really creating a
(14:28):
customer service problem. So us as the airline, we're going
to make sure that we can alleviate those problems. So
we will make every seat on the airplane incapable of reclining.
We'll have them all at this slight angle and everyone
will have the same and nobody can recline it. So
that's how we're going to take better care of our customer.
Of course, ps in behind closed doors. They can now
(14:50):
put an extra two rows on every aircraft so they
can make more revenue. Okay, that's the reason they do it.
So now they're going to say, we're going to give
you some premium seats and on West Jedi, I think
it's twelve seats per seven thirty seven that they're going
to have this on you can actually pay for these
seats for the ability to recline, and that's going to
be an additional service. And it just you know, and
(15:14):
you know, congratulations to them for finding another way to
squeeze more money out of us. Because from a business standpoint,
it's like, you know, we used to check bags and
it didn't cost us a penny. Now we have to
pay for it. We used to actually be able to
carry bags on an airplane, Now we got to pay
for it. We actually used to be able to sit
in the seat that had a little button that could
(15:34):
push us let our seat recline for free. No, now
we're gonna have to pay for it. Now you watch
what's going to happen here. West Jett is the first airline. Yep,
the dom the Leader brother, Buckle up and brace for impact.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
This reminded me of the I think BMWEN the first
automative auto manufacturer. But it's kind of become a popular
thing to equip the cars with all the technology and
then charge you to actually activate it.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
So out.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, so like a heated seat, it's in there, but
you got to pay fifty bucks a month or whatever
under some performance package to make it work. So my
question insofar as the seats are concerned, you mentioned the button.
Are they just going to disable the reclined mechanism so
that saves them having to replace the seats, so the
technologies in there, it's just been blocked out. Or are
(16:24):
they actually going to change the seats out to be fixed.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I don't think they change the seats out. I think
that would make it because it would be too expensive.
But I'll tell you this, as future airplanes are ordered,
you will have airplanes with these seats with the slight
recline that there's no way they can be reclined. And
of course some people have these knee blocker type devices
that you can buy, and I'm not advocating you do this,
(16:47):
and you can actually put it in the seat in
front of you that prevents the seat from reclining. And yeah,
the knee blockers or whatever they're called, if flight attendants
really get upset at us when we use them, because
when somebody tries to recline a seat and can't and
has found out what happened, you know, probably the person
before you put them on. They're not you, But right
(17:07):
it becomes it becomes I'm not suggesting you do this,
but it's it's airlines are getting tired of of, you know,
some of the stuff that flight attendants have to deal with,
and certainly flight attendants are getting tired of being the
referee between people that reclient seats, don't reclined seats and
all this and that, because there's a lot of arguments
and a lot of the low cost carriers have aircraft that, again,
(17:28):
the seas don't recline. They've got a slight recline to them,
and they're not super comfortable seats, but you're not in
them for an extended period of time, and they're lightweight
and they can also put more seats on the airplane.
So that's the case. But when I when I saw that,
I thought, oh, you gotta be kidding me. One I thought,
why didn't I think of that? Because you know it's
(17:50):
something it's so ridiculous. Sure we're going to do it.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
There's a lot of experts I could use on that
was because you're not, say a journy, you didn't think
of that because you would find the concept to be
offensive to the consumer. Anyway, You and I are not
wired deat way brothers.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
No we are not.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
No, we are not as we always Let's talk about
hub delays. What's it looking like out there today for
travel Jay Ratlift.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
This entire week has been a mess because especially with
some weather that's been coming in off the northeast. But
today is difference, and I'm thrilled to say the mess
in the Northeast has gone. Really, if if I was
getting paid for delays, it would be it'd be a
light day because Seattle is about the only airport hub
that's going to be impacted because of weather. Everything else
(18:37):
has been pretty well cleared out. Even I think some
of the turbulent areas where we could be experienced turbulence
have really subsided. So if you pick the day, you
get like a triple gold star because it's just gonna
be an incredible day to fly. You pick the perfect
perfect day to take to this.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Guys love it, we get end on a positive note.
Typically the entire conversation is positive. Jay Ratliffe, love having
you on the show Man. Look forward to next Thursday
with another air traffic or airline report or aviation report,
and as always, I hope you and your better half
have a wonderful day and week
Brian Thomas News
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