Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line. He
is our aviation expert. If you are traveling and you
see something funky on a flight or an airline, whether
it's on the plane itself or your customer service experience.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Let Jay know.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Jratlift dot com. Good morning. What's going on, buddy?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Please? Good morning, and thank you for that Community Foundation
dot net mentioned I scribbled that down and surey now
will definitely be helping out a little bit as well.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
We appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I mean, to try to relate to what any of
these people are going through is just beyond my ability.
But our heart just breaks for all the people impacted
by that. So thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I appreciate it absolutely, and thank you for your support
on that too.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Jay.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Is it possible that in the near future we'll be
able to keep our shoes on as we go through
a TSA checkpoint?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, we're getting there. And you know, one of the frustrations, Mike,
that I heard for the last ten, fifteen, twenty years
is JI flight out of this airport in the general queue,
not TSA pre check, and they require my shoes to
come off. I go back home from another airport and
I'm allowed to keep them on. There's just no consistency there,
(01:10):
which is what really drives a lot of people crazy
because it's like, look, I don't mind, but you know,
it's got to be one way or another. But there's
a lot of times at the airport we would get
specific threats that would be we would be briefed on
where we would have to look at certain things where
you would see a slight alteration to the normal screening
(01:31):
process at the security checkpoint. And one of the areas
that has always been susceptible to magnetometers the older ones
was there was kind of a dead spot at the
bottom and that's one of the reasons that the shoes
sometimes didn't pick up everything that if somebody had something
in their shoe that could be detected by that magnetometer,
(01:51):
that's one of the reasons that the shoes were to
come off and go through the security checkpoint. Because I
tell you, if you have in the old days, if
you ever went through the airport either with a clenched
fist or you scuffled your feet along the ground, yeah,
you're going to get all kinds of extra attention because
those are things that the people look at because that
(02:11):
was one of the ways people tried to get things through.
And you know, when you had the shoe bomber do
his thing, that's right, it just changed everything. Thank god
he didn't put his underwear, but you know, the is
shoes had to come off at that point in time,
all those years ago. And you know, we seem to
react more to security issues than be preemptive, which is
another frustration, but you know, we do what we can
(02:33):
to keep things moving.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So it seems like they're sort of testing that out
of the keeping the shoes on in some pretty big
airports in the lax and New York's LaGuardia Airport and
a few others that there. There's not an official policy
change right now from the TSA, but it appears as
though this could be coming. Any idea as to why.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I think the technology is improving to the point that
we no longer have those gaps at the bottom of
the magnetometer. There're go on and obviously the threat assessments
and other things, but you know, as the technology gets better,
the thought process is how can we make the travel
experience smoother for individuals? And that's one of the reasons
(03:14):
you're seeing airports throughout the facial recognition so that when
we get to an airport check in if we so
want to with an airline, instead of reaching into the
purse or pocket to pull out, the idea quick facial
scan two seconds being you're verified and your bags are
checked and the way you go. The TSA checkpoint also
would be utilizing for those that don't opt out facial recognition,
(03:36):
same sort of thing. Boom, you're through, and you'll reach
a point where down the year, down the road, airlines
envision a gate for departure that is not going to
be manned by any agent. That'll be fun, but they
will have the facial recognition in place so that we
board through specific gates as we are cleared. And the
(03:57):
thought is, look, if aba, the numbers are going to
double in the next you know, decade, Uh, certainly we
need to do everything that we can because instead of
three million people traveling today, you go with five or six.
You know, we we we can't, we can't even begin
to accommodate that many people. So the thought is, if
we can try to expedite the process on screening, we
(04:20):
can stay ahead of that and try to make things
a little bit smoother for everybody with obviously out you know,
reaching the point where we're sacrificing any level of security.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So if I if I'm a TSA pre check program member,
I'm paying, you know whatever it is, eighty bucks for
a couple of years of having to go right through
the expedited line that includes keeping my shoes on.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Maybe maybe I'll let that expire.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Then if I that's going to be the norm, then
maybe what happens to the PreCheck program?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, but the problem is you have a lot more
people in the general queue than the do you do
the TSA PreCheck And look, we're spoiled Cincinnati, Columbus. We've
got a great TSA team, well staff a core Nate
daily with the airlines on the loads and we get
through there pretty quick. And it's I say, it's almost
the same, but you come back from another airport and
instead of a ten minute general Q line, it's fifty minutes.
(05:12):
But the TSA pre check is like twelve. So to me,
it's like flight insurance eighty five bucks for five years
or whatever it is. Yeah, you're talking about eight to
fifty of flights each way if you only fly once
a year. So for me just to make sure that
I get through that checkpoint more quickly. I'm always going
to have the TSA pre check because to me, that's
(05:32):
great to have, even if the shoes and everything else
had to come off as well. It's a shorter line
and for me, yeah, I just don't want to take
any chances when I'm.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Flying, that makes sense. A couple of other stories, I
want to get to this one. Thankfully. I don't think
anybody who's hurt on this, but there was a fire
suppression foam that was triggered. I think this was in
was this in Detroit of the Spirit Airlines hangar?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
It was Spirit can't catch a break, I mean at
all ever for anything. But you know, Spirit's got a
primary maintenance base in Detroit. They spent thirty two million
dollars on it. I think they opened it up sometimes
twenty seventeen. But it's twe hundred and twenty six thousand
square feet. It is huge, and it also contains a
very shall we say, aggressive fire suppression system because obviously
(06:18):
when you have planes and fuel and things like that,
if it detects any sort of fire, this this foam
just starts to fill up the aircraft's hangar. Well, lightning
struck the building and it set off that fire suppression system.
Foam went everywhere. It partially buried I think five airplanes.
(06:39):
Three of them had to be taken out of the
rotation for inspection. It looked like snow because that white
foam actually started oozing out onto the tarmac outside the hangar,
and when you look at the Google images of this,
it does look like snow has come out of this. Now,
some of this foam could be considered corrosive to some extent,
(06:59):
So that's one of the reasons that you know, once
the airplanes are all the phone comes out, they'll have
to inspect the aircraft just to make sure that there
wasn't any sort of corrosive damage. It didn't affect Spirits
mainline fleet any But I'm telling you, I'm the president
of Spirit. I'm just waiting for the phone to ring
for the what's next type of thing, because I doubt
(07:21):
this picture is going to make their company calendar.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, you sent me the picture.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
It looks like those foam parties, like nightclub foam parties
used to see in the early nineties.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Not that I ever attended one of those, but I
would imagine that's what it looked like.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I wouldn't go play in this particular.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Different kind of foam might come out.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Looking a little differently than you jumped in.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
We we've talked before about battery fires on airplanes, you know,
the lithium ion batteries, and there was a Delta flight
that had to make an emergency land because of that.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, here we go again, blah blah blah. We had
a situation with a Delta Airlines flight seven to fifty
seven that was flying from it Atlanta to Port Lotdale.
One of the passengers of the one hundred and ninety
one people on board, the electronic device started to smoke,
start to catch on fire, Smoke starts to fill the cabin.
Flight attendants once again become firefighters as they helped to
(08:16):
extinguish this. They have bilos declared emergency landed in the
I think Fort Myers is where they diverted to. But
once again, another lyssium battery overheating on a flight, creating
a safety issue. And of course you and I talked
about the FAA a number of weeks ago that banned
Samsung Galaxy seven. I think it was smartphone from like
(08:38):
twenty sixteen. Other types of phones. I'm certain that as
we move forward, are going to see similar bands that
will not be allowed to fly. And of course, take
my kids the type of thing, Let me keep my phone.
It could be something that a lot of passengers are
going to have a hard time dealing with. But when
these phones are just continued overheat and they're creating all
(08:59):
kinds of a safety issue, and we've got to do
something because an aircraft at thirty five thousand feet to
catch us on fire, you don't have time to land it.
So we've got to do everything that we can to
try to prevent or reduce the number of these things
taking place, because they're just happening way too often.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
We're in the summer pattern now, Jay, it's warm afternoons,
pop up showers and thunderstorms. Had a couple to move
through yesterday. They're in the forecast here the next six
or seven days for air travel here in the next
couple of days, you see in any weather causing some problems.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
You know, the.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Biggest battle for us seems to be those afternoon thunderstorms
that pop up across the country that are giving us
those issues. And that's one of the reasons that the
later in the day you travel sometimes it becomes more
and more of an issue. So for the most part,
we've got to be looking out for those afternoon things,
which is just telling us if you're flying in the afternoon,
please get to the airport early two hours before departure.
(09:53):
But as far as the main hubs, Chicago, Minneapolis may
see some minor issues late in the day. You look
at the we their map, it looks calm, but that
changes so much in the afternoon with some of the
heat that we have across the country. So at least
we're off to a good start, but as the day progresses,
we're going to start thinking seek some of those things
impact hubs, and I think that the ones the most
(10:14):
prevalent are going to be a Chicago in.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Minneapolis very good. He is Jay Ratliffe.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
You can hear him or see him at his website
Jay Ratliffe dot com.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Always go to talk to my friend. We'll check in
again next week.
On the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line. He
is our aviation expert. If you are traveling and you
see something funky on a flight or an airline, whether
it's on the plane itself or your customer service experience.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Let Jay know.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Jratlift dot com. Good morning. What's going on, buddy?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Please? Good morning, and thank you for that Community Foundation
dot net mentioned I scribbled that down and surey now
will definitely be helping out a little bit as well.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
We appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I mean, to try to relate to what any of
these people are going through is just beyond my ability.
But our heart just breaks for all the people impacted
by that. So thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I appreciate it absolutely, and thank you for your support
on that too.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Jay.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Is it possible that in the near future we'll be
able to keep our shoes on as we go through
a TSA checkpoint?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, we're getting there. And you know, one of the frustrations, Mike,
that I heard for the last ten, fifteen, twenty years
is JI flight out of this airport in the general queue,
not TSA pre check, and they require my shoes to
come off. I go back home from another airport and
I'm allowed to keep them on. There's just no consistency there,
(01:10):
which is what really drives a lot of people crazy
because it's like, look, I don't mind, but you know,
it's got to be one way or another. But there's
a lot of times at the airport we would get
specific threats that would be we would be briefed on
where we would have to look at certain things where
you would see a slight alteration to the normal screening
(01:31):
process at the security checkpoint. And one of the areas
that has always been susceptible to magnetometers the older ones
was there was kind of a dead spot at the
bottom and that's one of the reasons that the shoes
sometimes didn't pick up everything that if somebody had something
in their shoe that could be detected by that magnetometer,
(01:51):
that's one of the reasons that the shoes were to
come off and go through the security checkpoint. Because I
tell you, if you have in the old days, if
you ever went through the airport either with a clenched
fist or you scuffled your feet along the ground, yeah,
you're going to get all kinds of extra attention because
those are things that the people look at because that
(02:11):
was one of the ways people tried to get things through.
And you know, when you had the shoe bomber do
his thing, that's right, it just changed everything. Thank god
he didn't put his underwear, but you know, the is
shoes had to come off at that point in time,
all those years ago. And you know, we seem to
react more to security issues than be preemptive, which is
another frustration, but you know, we do what we can
(02:33):
to keep things moving.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So it seems like they're sort of testing that out
of the keeping the shoes on in some pretty big
airports in the lax and New York's LaGuardia Airport and
a few others that there. There's not an official policy
change right now from the TSA, but it appears as
though this could be coming. Any idea as to why.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I think the technology is improving to the point that
we no longer have those gaps at the bottom of
the magnetometer. There're go on and obviously the threat assessments
and other things, but you know, as the technology gets better,
the thought process is how can we make the travel
experience smoother for individuals? And that's one of the reasons
(03:14):
you're seeing airports throughout the facial recognition so that when
we get to an airport check in if we so
want to with an airline, instead of reaching into the
purse or pocket to pull out, the idea quick facial
scan two seconds being you're verified and your bags are
checked and the way you go. The TSA checkpoint also
would be utilizing for those that don't opt out facial recognition,
(03:36):
same sort of thing. Boom, you're through, and you'll reach
a point where down the year, down the road, airlines
envision a gate for departure that is not going to
be manned by any agent. That'll be fun, but they
will have the facial recognition in place so that we
board through specific gates as we are cleared. And the
(03:57):
thought is, look, if aba, the numbers are going to
double in the next you know, decade, Uh, certainly we
need to do everything that we can because instead of
three million people traveling today, you go with five or six.
You know, we we we can't, we can't even begin
to accommodate that many people. So the thought is, if
we can try to expedite the process on screening, we
(04:20):
can stay ahead of that and try to make things
a little bit smoother for everybody with obviously out you know,
reaching the point where we're sacrificing any level of security.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So if I if I'm a TSA pre check program member,
I'm paying, you know whatever it is, eighty bucks for
a couple of years of having to go right through
the expedited line that includes keeping my shoes on.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Maybe maybe I'll let that expire.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Then if I that's going to be the norm, then
maybe what happens to the PreCheck program?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, but the problem is you have a lot more
people in the general queue than the do you do
the TSA PreCheck And look, we're spoiled Cincinnati, Columbus. We've
got a great TSA team, well staff a core Nate
daily with the airlines on the loads and we get
through there pretty quick. And it's I say, it's almost
the same, but you come back from another airport and
instead of a ten minute general Q line, it's fifty minutes.
(05:12):
But the TSA pre check is like twelve. So to me,
it's like flight insurance eighty five bucks for five years
or whatever it is. Yeah, you're talking about eight to
fifty of flights each way if you only fly once
a year. So for me just to make sure that
I get through that checkpoint more quickly. I'm always going
to have the TSA pre check because to me, that's
(05:32):
great to have, even if the shoes and everything else
had to come off as well. It's a shorter line
and for me, yeah, I just don't want to take
any chances when I'm.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Flying, that makes sense. A couple of other stories, I
want to get to this one. Thankfully. I don't think
anybody who's hurt on this, but there was a fire
suppression foam that was triggered. I think this was in
was this in Detroit of the Spirit Airlines hangar?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
It was Spirit can't catch a break, I mean at
all ever for anything. But you know, Spirit's got a
primary maintenance base in Detroit. They spent thirty two million
dollars on it. I think they opened it up sometimes
twenty seventeen. But it's twe hundred and twenty six thousand
square feet. It is huge, and it also contains a
very shall we say, aggressive fire suppression system because obviously
(06:18):
when you have planes and fuel and things like that,
if it detects any sort of fire, this this foam
just starts to fill up the aircraft's hangar. Well, lightning
struck the building and it set off that fire suppression system.
Foam went everywhere. It partially buried I think five airplanes.
(06:39):
Three of them had to be taken out of the
rotation for inspection. It looked like snow because that white
foam actually started oozing out onto the tarmac outside the hangar,
and when you look at the Google images of this,
it does look like snow has come out of this. Now,
some of this foam could be considered corrosive to some extent,
(06:59):
So that's one of the reasons that you know, once
the airplanes are all the phone comes out, they'll have
to inspect the aircraft just to make sure that there
wasn't any sort of corrosive damage. It didn't affect Spirits
mainline fleet any But I'm telling you, I'm the president
of Spirit. I'm just waiting for the phone to ring
for the what's next type of thing, because I doubt
(07:21):
this picture is going to make their company calendar.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, you sent me the picture.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
It looks like those foam parties, like nightclub foam parties
used to see in the early nineties.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Not that I ever attended one of those, but I
would imagine that's what it looked like.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I wouldn't go play in this particular.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Different kind of foam might come out.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Looking a little differently than you jumped in.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
We we've talked before about battery fires on airplanes, you know,
the lithium ion batteries, and there was a Delta flight
that had to make an emergency land because of that.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, here we go again, blah blah blah. We had
a situation with a Delta Airlines flight seven to fifty
seven that was flying from it Atlanta to Port Lotdale.
One of the passengers of the one hundred and ninety
one people on board, the electronic device started to smoke,
start to catch on fire, Smoke starts to fill the cabin.
Flight attendants once again become firefighters as they helped to
(08:16):
extinguish this. They have bilos declared emergency landed in the
I think Fort Myers is where they diverted to. But
once again, another lyssium battery overheating on a flight, creating
a safety issue. And of course you and I talked
about the FAA a number of weeks ago that banned
Samsung Galaxy seven. I think it was smartphone from like
(08:38):
twenty sixteen. Other types of phones. I'm certain that as
we move forward, are going to see similar bands that
will not be allowed to fly. And of course, take
my kids the type of thing, Let me keep my phone.
It could be something that a lot of passengers are
going to have a hard time dealing with. But when
these phones are just continued overheat and they're creating all
(08:59):
kinds of a safety issue, and we've got to do
something because an aircraft at thirty five thousand feet to
catch us on fire, you don't have time to land it.
So we've got to do everything that we can to
try to prevent or reduce the number of these things
taking place, because they're just happening way too often.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
We're in the summer pattern now, Jay, it's warm afternoons,
pop up showers and thunderstorms. Had a couple to move
through yesterday. They're in the forecast here the next six
or seven days for air travel here in the next
couple of days, you see in any weather causing some problems.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
You know, the.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Biggest battle for us seems to be those afternoon thunderstorms
that pop up across the country that are giving us
those issues. And that's one of the reasons that the
later in the day you travel sometimes it becomes more
and more of an issue. So for the most part,
we've got to be looking out for those afternoon things,
which is just telling us if you're flying in the afternoon,
please get to the airport early two hours before departure.
(09:53):
But as far as the main hubs, Chicago, Minneapolis may
see some minor issues late in the day. You look
at the we their map, it looks calm, but that
changes so much in the afternoon with some of the
heat that we have across the country. So at least
we're off to a good start, but as the day progresses,
we're going to start thinking seek some of those things
impact hubs, and I think that the ones the most
(10:14):
prevalent are going to be a Chicago in.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Minneapolis very good. He is Jay Ratliffe.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
You can hear him or see him at his website
Jay Ratliffe dot com.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Always go to talk to my friend. We'll check in
again next week.
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