Not ATC at the airport? No Problem!

Aviation Expert has the latest travel news from the Airlines including American Airlines makes a baggage change- that is pro-customer!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chiefs are two and three.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
We'll get to more with Matt in sports coming up
here momentarily. Bucky is still favored by fourteen and a
half over Illinois for Saturday in a very teasing manner.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
I used to like the Chiefs until I watched that
The Quarterback Special on Netflix a couple of summers ago.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
We're on the Mahomes thing. Patrick. Mahomes is just not
likable anymore.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I used to appreciate his skill, and I suppose I
still do, but as a human being, I don't care
for him as much.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
The connection of Mahomes of my auto, I don't care
about that.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
He doesn't seem like a very nice guy, That's all
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
So, yeah, they're two and three. All right.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Lots to cover with Jay Ratliffe on the Legacy Retirement
Group dot com phone line. Jay, of course, our aviation
expert at j ratlift dot com.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Jay.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
There were no air traffic controllers at the Burbank Airport
last night for a few hours due to some staffing issues,
of course, because of the ongoing government shutdown, and get this,
there were no incidents.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Oh shocker. Well, we have to have an incident. We're
gonna blame it on President Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
So that's what I'm getting at.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
You're exactly right. Well, you know, when we had the
two airplanes that bumped the low collision I think at LaGuardia,
it was like, oh my gosh, this is obviously because
the government shut down, and it's obviously because Donald Trump,
and it just when both sides do that, it just
we just become tone deaf to everything because it's just

(01:30):
politics as usual. But yeah, we had a situation where
there was a staffing issue and there are redundancies in place,
which basically means you have a nearby center that will
overtake that airspace for a period of time until everything
gets the result staffing wise, and then things kind of
we're back to the way it was. And this happens
all the time, and it's it's kind of like when

(01:55):
Boeing had the issue with the Alaska Airlines door plug
a January a year ago, and there'd be a bird
strike and it'd be Boeing and it'd be like, oh
my gosh, you know, we're having a Boeing bird striking.
As though because it's Boeing, there's an increase in the
bird strikes, like the birds are after boeing. Anything that
they can do to tie things in is a stretch,
and it really just kind of makes everybody look bad

(02:17):
because these types of things happen all the time, and
there's times you have a technology issue where perhaps the
technology fails at a certain center and they've got to
push things to another nearby center to have them oversee
manage that air traffic control till that technology is fixed
and everything pivots back. So it's kind of a big
non news story to me because it happens all the time.

(02:39):
But now because people are looking for stories that can
support a negative, It's like when they're talking about turbulence
on a specific flight, and as I read these, I'm like,
just wait for it, wait for it. Here it comes,
and there it is. Because of climate change, we have turbulence,
and I'm like, give me a break. But if there's
a way that they can use story to kind of

(03:02):
add a punctuation mark to a specific spin, it's gonna
happen all the time, and when you look for it
and see it, you know, I'm almost disappointed when I
don't see certain things being referenced because it's like, oh, Wow,
somebody's gonna lose their job because this is a perfect
chance to plug this or that and they failed to
do it.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Oh, there's smaller airports all over the country that don't
have active control towers, and planes take off in the
land just fine all the time.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
People don't realize that.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Well, tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands
of flights up and down, up and down, up THEWN.
You have military, you have the air ambulances, you've got
commercial aviation. When you look at the network of the
millions of flights that take place here in the United States,
it's a lot like if you could watch your bag
go from the counter to the plane to the destin
and issue wonder how in the world did it ever

(03:49):
get there? Or a piece of mail. But the way
that the system is set up, even with yes, we're
short staffed, and of the fifty thousand FAA employe I
think about eleven thousand of them are furlough temporarily because
of the shutdown. Even with the shortage of air traffic
controllers and everything else we have, people do a very

(04:10):
good job. Even though they're working over time. Some of
them are exhausted. We really need to get the relief
there as far as an additional headcount. But they're doing
a very good job, and all you have to do
is look at how many flights a day, all the
situations that are encountered in the course of that time,
and the job that these men and women are doing.
And it's a lot like if you're working at a

(04:30):
church and you're doing the sound system. When something squeals,
everybody in the congregation turns around and looks at you.
It's only when something goes wrong that there's any attention
on that person. And it's the same thing with air
traffic controllers. They can do their job perfectly and nobody
says boohis. But it's a lot like the TSA this summer.
You and I didn't talk one single time about any

(04:50):
TSA disruption during a very busy summer travel season, right
because they did an incredible job. So you like to
point it out when you know people are doing their
job and obviously things happen, and you just do as
much as you can so humanly possible, we can reduce
the likelihood of certain things taking place.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Let me ask you this about the shutdown, and you
know FAA and air traffic control in TSA, and we'll
move on to the next topic. But there are some
air traffic controllers that are calling in sick because they're
being asked to work and not getting paid. But have
they missed a paycheck yet? I mean, I don't know
the pay cycle. I would imagine, you know, like most people,
it's the first and fifteenth or the fifteenth and the thirtieth. Well,

(05:29):
the government shutdowns to going on a week, it's seven
days in. They probably haven't missed the payment yet. And
should the government get back up and running this week,
they'll get back pay if they miss a paycheck, which
I don't think they have yet.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
So what are they calling in sick for.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Well, if sometimes you tell protests, they don't exactly taking place.
So the thought is if if I can call in sick,
and you know, maybe I rarely do it, nobody will
you blink an eye? Well, then what takes place is
maybe that'll add pressure to get this thing resolved because
a lot of people that are in the air traffic
control site, and look, any you talk to most people

(06:05):
and if you said, what would happen if you didn't
get paid for a month or that month's pay was
pushed back to month two or three. The problem, it
is a big time problem. You know, it's for a
lot of these individuals say, look, I've got to drive
an hour and a half hour to get to where
I'm at and back, and the gas alone that I
eat up, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth,
and not getting paid for week after week is problematic.

(06:28):
So some people is just economics. I'm just not going
to do it because I don't have the money to
do so. And you know, there's a lot of a
lot of individuals that are in that same situation. So
obviously I don't want them calling in sick. But look,
I would be insensitive to not understand what some of
these people are going through. And I'll never shrug it
off like it's no big deal, because remember I lived

(06:49):
in a motel room for ten years. There was times
when yeah, money I got was whatever change was left
at the end of the day that I could buy
a dollar McDonald's hamburger. So there are times that, you know,
it's very very difficult for people. And when you see this,
some people just kind of callous, if you will, just saying,
you know, what's the big deal? Well, if you are

(07:11):
in their situation, it might be a big deal. But look,
hopefully they'll get things resolved quickly. But with people playing politics,
who knows how long it's going to go on. And
the further it does, we're going to start to see
some strains on the aviation network and I certainly don't
want to see that take place.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
J ratlifts at jarratlift dot com. We'll switch gears here.
American Airlines has made a baggage policy change, and you're
all for this one.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
I had to read the reports a couple of times.
I'm like, ooh, is this really true or is this
fake news? Because in front of the ticket counter, in
front of the gate, they have this little metal stand
that you can put your bag in. If it fits,
then it can go on board the airplane. If it doesn't,
they're going to check your bag. The problem is these
things are very annoying because a it's just one size,

(07:57):
and aircraft are a bunch of different sizes, so this
thing may not really be reflective of the aircraft that's
at the gate. My bag may may not be able
to fit even though it fits in that little thing
that they can kind of measure them by it's slowing
planes up, it's delaying flights, and it's kind of becoming
an issue because it's like a battle for somebody trying

(08:17):
to get their bag on an airplane. American says, we're
going to get rid of all those metal stands and
we're just gonna let people board the airplane if the
bag looks like it's gonna fit, because our agents know
that the aircraft type, the overhead been size. And some
people say, what if it looks like it's gonna be
maybe a little bit too big, and Americans saying, look,
we're gonna air on the side of service. My word's

(08:39):
not theirs. We're gonna let the passenger ticket, we're gonna
turn them. So it's kind of like a we're trying
to appreciate you more. We're trying to make it easier
for me more, and we're kind of trying to take
out some of the crappy headaches you've had to deal
with in the past. Let's get rid of this thing.
And it's really nice to see because you're empowering your
agents at the gate to do what they need to do,
and they know which back you're gonna fit much won't

(09:01):
and they're not gonna let something go down the jet
bridge that is going to be too big without gate
checking it. But now you don't have those lines of
people trying to see if their bags are gonna fit
or not and go from there. And I'm asked all
the time, like, why don't the TSA have a bag
monitor that you can put something make sure your bag
fits before we can go through security. One of the
problem is we have dozens of airplanes that have dozens

(09:23):
of different sizes for the overhead storage compartment. So pardon me.
You might have been able to fly to your destination
and your bag was fine, but coming back it's too big.
Well what happened? You're on a smaller airplane on the
return and that handcarry no longer fits.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Interesting. I always thought it was more about weight. I
get the I get the the the check bags versus
the carry on and me carry on.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
It's a it's a fixed compartment.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
But if you're if you're checking a bag, I mean
it's it's going to go onto the luggage hold, and
it's it's just about it's about the weight of the.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Luggage as far as the gate and the ticket counter.
Most time it's about the mentions if it's just too
big to fit in the over read storage compartment, because
obviously if you have two or three people or two
or three families that board with a lot of those,
the entire line stops because you've got people now trying
to make it fit and nobody's getting on the airplane right.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
All right, Hey, we've got some rain in the area
today and a large part of the country is seeing
a lot of green on the radar to imagine there's
some hub delays this morning.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, Unfortunately, it's probably the most challenging day of the
week that we've had from a hub standpoint, because we're
seeing Chicago impacted, Detroit impacted big time. We also have
whether that's moving towards the northeast could impact Philadelphia later
in the day, But as we speak right now, the
problem children are clearly going to be Chicago and Detroit.
To expect delays if you're connecting through either of those

(10:45):
two destinations.