April 15, 2025 • 9 mins
Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff has the latest travel news from the Airlines including changes at Southwest...the latest is not going over well
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This was a situation that started on seventy one near
seventy one and three.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Point fifteen to split there.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
The drivers continued westbound on seventy There was a F
one to fifty black Ford F one fifty and a
gold Chevy Equinox. The guy in the Equinox didn't care
for what was happening on the road, pulled the gun out,
fired a couple of shots at the F one fifty,
and the driver there was hit in the face.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hit in the face.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
He's at the hospital with non life threatening injury there,
which is remarkable. I'm happy that he's okay. But they
were quote unquote break checking each other, you know, at whatever,
it was seven to forty five in the morning.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
That's a little too early for a road rage.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Guys, just stop, pull over at gas station and get
into him, good old fistfight.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, yeah, nobody does that anymore.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Or just just stay in your car and don't be
a jerk. That's another obviously, Just don't be a jerk.
You're gonna get there just like everybody else. But it's
causing him major problem on the roads this morning. Like
I said, we'll get with Johnny and get an update here.
In a couple of minutes. It's it's probably a better
day to be on an airplane. To be honest with you,
Let's check in with Jay Ratlift, our aviation expert. You
can find him at j Ratlift dot com. Jay real quick,
(01:10):
I see, I always like hitting you with this stuff randomly.
Dow futures down about a buck eighty one hundred and
eighty points now less than an hour before the opening bell.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
What does that mean you're doing?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
It means we're just waiting to see which stocks start moving.
I mean we've been tracking some of the pre market.
We don't my students and I don't track stocks on
a market specific basis, but on a stock specific basis.
So I don't care if the market's going up, down,
or sideways. They're always going to be stocks we can
look at. But look, NASDEK needs all the help it
can get. It's down fifteen percent on the year, SMP
(01:42):
down ten, even the Dow is down six percent on
the year. So we've got to have some some good
mojo as far as the markets are concerned. And look
at yesterday, I mean there's like a six hundred point
swing like we were, you know, down and then all
of a sudden, we're up, and you've got to take
draam of meine if you're gonna be watching this stuff
hoping that your long term investments hang in there. But yeah,
(02:04):
I keep telling people, just take your hands off the
steering wheel, don't panic, don't react to headlines, because the
plan that most people have in place is a good
one if that's what they've been doing for, you know,
the last ten years or so. And don't let you know,
a little market volatility cause you to call that all
that into question. It normally works out bad if you
try to change things in time in a way to
(02:26):
try to take advantage of things or panic, as most
people are doing right now.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
The other hat jayware is in addition to his aviation hat,
is daytrade fund dot com if you want to check
them out there. All right, I got some changes Jay
in the aviation world. When it comes to Southwest Airlines?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
What do they do? What are they?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I know they're they're switching their boarding policies and their
baggage policies and some of these things.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well they are you know, Yeah, they got rid of
the fifty seven year old policy about bags flying free.
So they're going to be charging for luggage and that's
not going over real well with the customers. And you know,
I'm glad Operateationally. They're going to assigned seating in the
near future, and they're going to offer premium seats. I
think those are good customer friendly things that'll make the
boarding process so much easier than what it's ever been.
(03:11):
But this announcement this week that they came out with
that they're vouchers they're going to have a change with
I just thought, what are you doing? They were the
only airline out there that would give vouchers that had
no expiration date. Your flight's over sold or we dropped
the ball. From a customer service standpoint, here's a two
hundred dollars travel voucher to use it sometime in the
(03:32):
near future. Those travel vouchers with any other airline I
have an expiration date of normally twelve months, sometimes sixteen months,
formally twelve months. But the kicker is like eight percent
of them are used. When I was at Northwest Airlines,
I think it was eight percent of the vouchers we
gave out were used. So think about that when you
(03:52):
overbook a flight, when you tick people off. Really, you know,
Pom big time, you apologize heartfelt, and you give them
of these vouchers. You give the vouchers out to one
hundred people, knowing only eight of them are going to
cash them, right, And so what's the incentive for airlines
to change what they're doing? Well, now Southwest has said
we're going to walk back our policy. No longer will
(04:14):
we have vouchers expiration free travel vouchers. Now they're all
going to have an expiration date either twelve months or
six months. So clearly Southwest, which is an airline I
have loved forever, they don't really care about how many
feathers they ruffle here. Clearly it's profits first, passengers at
a very distant second as they try to become like
(04:36):
everybody else. And they made money for decades when no
of the airline could. And I'm sure they're going to
get exactly what they wanted and become like every other carrier.
Even their fares are higher, and they're really losing a
lot of what made Southwest the great airline they were.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, you start, you start getting into the customer service arena,
and like you said, p and Ol po and people
and that's that's a quick way to lose some loyal
fans there, Jay Ratlift, you can find him at j
ratlift dot com. This one caught my eye right off
the hop.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Jay.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
The FAA is concerned with airplane lavatories quote becoming detached.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That seems like it's not ideal.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
That's their word for sure, because when I saw the
word detached, I'm like, detached where from?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
What?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Where are these things are gonna go? So but what
they're saying is that on the boating seven eighty seven Dreamliners,
there is a there's a possibility that the floor can
get damp enough, you know, thank them in for that,
and it could actually start to corode some of the
(05:44):
fittings and the lavatories could become detached. Now, I think
what they mean is the the lavoratories are loaded like
a pod. It's a single unit that's put inside the
fuselage of the aircraft. It's secured, and the concern is
that the the that hold that in snugly into the
interior of the aircraft corrode to the point that those
(06:08):
fittings are compromised, and all of a sudden you have
the laboratory shift, and that shift could prevent the door
from coming open or anything else. But I mean, the
last thing you want to do is think about you
may go the laboratory not come out. I mean, you
just don't want that. So, yeah, it's a Boeing issue.
They're trying to see what they can do to fix
it here and hopefully they can do it before we
(06:29):
have an aviation story about a detached lavatory.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, where somebody gets you know, the door becomes stuck
because it's uneven and you're stuck in the lavatory for
you know, the duration of a four or five hour flight.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's not the way you want to have.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
We do have passengers that have been you know, trapped
inside the laboratories for sometimes hours at a time, and
the FA's requiring some of the locks and different things
to be changed where you know, it's easier to rescue
people because I think we had a United plate a
while back that a passenger had to actually lane seated
in the laboratory because they couldn't get it or open.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
There was a flight from from Mexico. This is I
think a couple of delta flights Mexico to Atlanta, and
in one of these they got to Alabama. They had
the land because of bad weather. But they were stuck
in Montgomery, Alabama, and these passengers were stuck in the
plane on the tarmac overnight.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yes, because there was no customs officials at the airport
when they arrived. They're coming from Cabo and they're coming
from Mexico City. In international destinations, flights were headed for Atlanta.
Bad weather in Atlanta, they have to divert. They go
to Montgomery, thinking the weather in Atlanta will clear, will
take off from the nearby airport of Montgomery and shoot
(07:48):
on over to Atlanta. The problem was the weather in
Atlanta didn't break and it caused the aircraft to remain overnight.
Not having custom in border protection officials at the Montgomery
airport the time meant you could not process or allow
those passengers off the plane seven hours. So eventually they
were able to get them off the airplane limited food.
(08:10):
This is after your flight's already concluded. Think about it,
coming in from Mexico City and from Macabo, and you
know now you've got to sit on that airplane for
an extended period of time. Delta's apologized said that operationally
they'll try to make sure that they can find out
how this cannot happen again in the future. But the
bottom line is this happens quite often when airplanes divert.
(08:31):
They think they're going to be there for a short
period of time, and then all of a sudden, they're
there an extended period of time. Now the pilots have
timed out, meaning that you cannot they can't fly any
more hours, so then the passengers are stuck until the
next day. It happens. And you know, especially when we're
talking about the summer travel season, when you have a
lot of especially springing summer, a lot of thunderstorms and
(08:54):
things of this nature, those types of creeping delays that
turn into very long delays sadly occurred. They did not
obviously anticipate a seven hour delay when they went there
the first time, but sadly that's what took place.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
They'll talk about a comedy of airs there.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
How many travel vouchers do I get if I'm stuck
on the tarmac overnight, Well, all of them answers to
all of.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Them everybody's ticket, which I think is a good first step,
and then they'll probably give them, like, you know, X
amount of miles as an apology, or yes, they may
pull out those very popular travel vouchers. He he, he
will give you these knowing that most of them are
never getting used.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, or they'll expire your Southwest the soon to expire.
All right, Jay, I gotta cut you loose hub delays.
If you're traveling around the country today.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, Chicago, Detroit and then New York and Boston I
think are going to be the problem children of the day.
If you're headed in those directions, by all means, show
up at the airport extra early.
This was a situation that started on seventy one near
seventy one and three.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Point fifteen to split there.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
The drivers continued westbound on seventy There was a F
one to fifty black Ford F one fifty and a
gold Chevy Equinox. The guy in the Equinox didn't care
for what was happening on the road, pulled the gun out,
fired a couple of shots at the F one fifty,
and the driver there was hit in the face.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hit in the face.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
He's at the hospital with non life threatening injury there,
which is remarkable. I'm happy that he's okay. But they
were quote unquote break checking each other, you know, at whatever,
it was seven to forty five in the morning.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
That's a little too early for a road rage.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Guys, just stop, pull over at gas station and get
into him, good old fistfight.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, yeah, nobody does that anymore.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Or just just stay in your car and don't be
a jerk. That's another obviously, Just don't be a jerk.
You're gonna get there just like everybody else. But it's
causing him major problem on the roads this morning. Like
I said, we'll get with Johnny and get an update here.
In a couple of minutes. It's it's probably a better
day to be on an airplane. To be honest with you,
Let's check in with Jay Ratlift, our aviation expert. You
can find him at j Ratlift dot com. Jay real quick,
(01:10):
I see, I always like hitting you with this stuff randomly.
Dow futures down about a buck eighty one hundred and
eighty points now less than an hour before the opening bell.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
What does that mean you're doing?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
It means we're just waiting to see which stocks start moving.
I mean we've been tracking some of the pre market.
We don't my students and I don't track stocks on
a market specific basis, but on a stock specific basis.
So I don't care if the market's going up, down,
or sideways. They're always going to be stocks we can
look at. But look, NASDEK needs all the help it
can get. It's down fifteen percent on the year, SMP
(01:42):
down ten, even the Dow is down six percent on
the year. So we've got to have some some good
mojo as far as the markets are concerned. And look
at yesterday, I mean there's like a six hundred point
swing like we were, you know, down and then all
of a sudden, we're up, and you've got to take
draam of meine if you're gonna be watching this stuff
hoping that your long term investments hang in there. But yeah,
(02:04):
I keep telling people, just take your hands off the
steering wheel, don't panic, don't react to headlines, because the
plan that most people have in place is a good
one if that's what they've been doing for, you know,
the last ten years or so. And don't let you know,
a little market volatility cause you to call that all
that into question. It normally works out bad if you
try to change things in time in a way to
(02:26):
try to take advantage of things or panic, as most
people are doing right now.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
The other hat jayware is in addition to his aviation hat,
is daytrade fund dot com if you want to check
them out there. All right, I got some changes Jay
in the aviation world. When it comes to Southwest Airlines?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
What do they do? What are they?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I know they're they're switching their boarding policies and their
baggage policies and some of these things.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well they are you know, Yeah, they got rid of
the fifty seven year old policy about bags flying free.
So they're going to be charging for luggage and that's
not going over real well with the customers. And you know,
I'm glad Operateationally. They're going to assigned seating in the
near future, and they're going to offer premium seats. I
think those are good customer friendly things that'll make the
boarding process so much easier than what it's ever been.
(03:11):
But this announcement this week that they came out with
that they're vouchers they're going to have a change with
I just thought, what are you doing? They were the
only airline out there that would give vouchers that had
no expiration date. Your flight's over sold or we dropped
the ball. From a customer service standpoint, here's a two
hundred dollars travel voucher to use it sometime in the
(03:32):
near future. Those travel vouchers with any other airline I
have an expiration date of normally twelve months, sometimes sixteen months,
formally twelve months. But the kicker is like eight percent
of them are used. When I was at Northwest Airlines,
I think it was eight percent of the vouchers we
gave out were used. So think about that when you
(03:52):
overbook a flight, when you tick people off. Really, you know,
Pom big time, you apologize heartfelt, and you give them
of these vouchers. You give the vouchers out to one
hundred people, knowing only eight of them are going to
cash them, right, And so what's the incentive for airlines
to change what they're doing? Well, now Southwest has said
we're going to walk back our policy. No longer will
(04:14):
we have vouchers expiration free travel vouchers. Now they're all
going to have an expiration date either twelve months or
six months. So clearly Southwest, which is an airline I
have loved forever, they don't really care about how many
feathers they ruffle here. Clearly it's profits first, passengers at
a very distant second as they try to become like
(04:36):
everybody else. And they made money for decades when no
of the airline could. And I'm sure they're going to
get exactly what they wanted and become like every other carrier.
Even their fares are higher, and they're really losing a
lot of what made Southwest the great airline they were.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, you start, you start getting into the customer service arena,
and like you said, p and Ol po and people
and that's that's a quick way to lose some loyal
fans there, Jay Ratlift, you can find him at j
ratlift dot com. This one caught my eye right off
the hop.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Jay.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
The FAA is concerned with airplane lavatories quote becoming detached.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That seems like it's not ideal.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
That's their word for sure, because when I saw the
word detached, I'm like, detached where from?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
What?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Where are these things are gonna go? So but what
they're saying is that on the boating seven eighty seven Dreamliners,
there is a there's a possibility that the floor can
get damp enough, you know, thank them in for that,
and it could actually start to corode some of the
(05:44):
fittings and the lavatories could become detached. Now, I think
what they mean is the the lavoratories are loaded like
a pod. It's a single unit that's put inside the
fuselage of the aircraft. It's secured, and the concern is
that the the that hold that in snugly into the
interior of the aircraft corrode to the point that those
(06:08):
fittings are compromised, and all of a sudden you have
the laboratory shift, and that shift could prevent the door
from coming open or anything else. But I mean, the
last thing you want to do is think about you
may go the laboratory not come out. I mean, you
just don't want that. So, yeah, it's a Boeing issue.
They're trying to see what they can do to fix
it here and hopefully they can do it before we
(06:29):
have an aviation story about a detached lavatory.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, where somebody gets you know, the door becomes stuck
because it's uneven and you're stuck in the lavatory for
you know, the duration of a four or five hour flight.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's not the way you want to have.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
We do have passengers that have been you know, trapped
inside the laboratories for sometimes hours at a time, and
the FA's requiring some of the locks and different things
to be changed where you know, it's easier to rescue
people because I think we had a United plate a
while back that a passenger had to actually lane seated
in the laboratory because they couldn't get it or open.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
There was a flight from from Mexico. This is I
think a couple of delta flights Mexico to Atlanta, and
in one of these they got to Alabama. They had
the land because of bad weather. But they were stuck
in Montgomery, Alabama, and these passengers were stuck in the
plane on the tarmac overnight.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yes, because there was no customs officials at the airport
when they arrived. They're coming from Cabo and they're coming
from Mexico City. In international destinations, flights were headed for Atlanta.
Bad weather in Atlanta, they have to divert. They go
to Montgomery, thinking the weather in Atlanta will clear, will
take off from the nearby airport of Montgomery and shoot
(07:48):
on over to Atlanta. The problem was the weather in
Atlanta didn't break and it caused the aircraft to remain overnight.
Not having custom in border protection officials at the Montgomery
airport the time meant you could not process or allow
those passengers off the plane seven hours. So eventually they
were able to get them off the airplane limited food.
(08:10):
This is after your flight's already concluded. Think about it,
coming in from Mexico City and from Macabo, and you
know now you've got to sit on that airplane for
an extended period of time. Delta's apologized said that operationally
they'll try to make sure that they can find out
how this cannot happen again in the future. But the
bottom line is this happens quite often when airplanes divert.
(08:31):
They think they're going to be there for a short
period of time, and then all of a sudden, they're
there an extended period of time. Now the pilots have
timed out, meaning that you cannot they can't fly any
more hours, so then the passengers are stuck until the
next day. It happens. And you know, especially when we're
talking about the summer travel season, when you have a
lot of especially springing summer, a lot of thunderstorms and
(08:54):
things of this nature, those types of creeping delays that
turn into very long delays sadly occurred. They did not
obviously anticipate a seven hour delay when they went there
the first time, but sadly that's what took place.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
They'll talk about a comedy of airs there.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
How many travel vouchers do I get if I'm stuck
on the tarmac overnight, Well, all of them answers to
all of.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Them everybody's ticket, which I think is a good first step,
and then they'll probably give them, like, you know, X
amount of miles as an apology, or yes, they may
pull out those very popular travel vouchers. He he, he
will give you these knowing that most of them are
never getting used.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, or they'll expire your Southwest the soon to expire.
All right, Jay, I gotta cut you loose hub delays.
If you're traveling around the country today.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, Chicago, Detroit and then New York and Boston I
think are going to be the problem children of the day.
If you're headed in those directions, by all means, show
up at the airport extra early.
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