December 9, 2025 • 9 mins
Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff has the latest travel news including the U.S. government giving Southwest Airlines a break cutting $11 million off fine for Christmas 2023 meltdown
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, let's go over to the Legacy Retirement Group
(00:01):
dot com phone line Jack am in one of our faves.
It's Jay Ratlift, our aviation expert. You can find him
at j Ratlift dot com. How are you this morning, Sorr?
Are you drinking your water?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm staying very, very hydrated, as you need to be.
Sometimes you forget about it and you do well. You
know when somebody asks you, hey, measure in a single
day how much water you drink? A lot of times
we think we drink more than we do, and when
you actually stop to measure it, you're shocked at the
fact that you may not be getting enough.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Does it count in coffee? Does coffee count as water
as hydrates?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
To me mean absolutely?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Brother, Hey, I saw the government is giving southwester Anlines
a little bit of a break. They had a fine
from a couple of years ago around Christmas time. Remind
me in the audience, what were they find for?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, this was the Christmas debacle of two years ago,
twenty twenty three. I believe it was where their computer
system crashed and it was the week of Christmas. And
found out later that the computer system was something that
was based on passengers onto other flights because everything was
full canceled. It was it was a headache and the
(01:10):
poor people that worked the front lines at Southwest, it
was a horrific day and anybody at the travels remembers it.
And the Biden administration, as we've talked about many many times,
stepped in and said, oh, we're not standing for this,
and they find them thirty five million dollars. Wow, Well,
the Southwest has paid twenty four million of that. And
now the Department Transportation under the Trump administration, which is
(01:32):
a very friendly relationship to the administration and airlines, has
decided to uh, forego the last eleven million dollars. I mean,
after all, they promised never to do it again, and
they are doing a little better, and it just it
drives me out of my mind because there are so
many times that the airlines are hit American and Delta
(01:52):
and all these different ones are hit with various fines
that the FAA will come in and say, look, we
want to find you, you know, thirty million dollars, twenty
million dollars and it's negotiating down to like five. And
one of the reasons that the airline stocks all went
up when Donald Trump was elected, and I was certainly
glad he was. They went up because people remember the
relationship the Trump administration had with airlines in that first
(02:16):
administration was very friendly. So the thought was, is the
Trump administration going to continue this very not oppressive but
holding airlines accountable position or are they going to kind
of throttle back and take it easy on them. Well,
here you go, and that's one of the reasons that
we had a lot of the airlines in Boeing contribute
a million dollars to the Trump Inaugural Fund right after
(02:38):
he was elected. So it drives me crazy and it
just makes my blood pressure go up because far too
many times it's the airlines that seemed to be the
ones telling the government what they're going to do instead
of the other way around. But look, you know, Southwest
is turning things around in a way that I'm very
impressed with, and I just wanted to continue. But when
it comes to the airlines being a allowed to kind
(03:01):
of walk back from some of these fines, historic or not,
I don't care. I really appreciated what was being done
in the prior administration, which was the only thing I
admired in that administration, and it stopped immediately when Biden
was no longer an office.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, and I think both can be true. I think
you can be friendly to a certain sector of business,
but you also have to have you got to have
you got to you know, hold your ground when it comes.
There's no point in having a punishment or a fine
if you're not going to stick to it. I think
I think both can be true. Hey, we'll be favorable
with regulations and so forth to you. However, should you
cross us, you will pay the price.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, and that should be what happens. But remember Boeing
admitted to criminal wrongdoing in the two Boeing Max crashes
during the Biden administration. When when Donald Trump was elected,
Boeing goes back to the Department of Justice saying, can
we revisit that and maybe pull back some of the
things that we agreed to blah blah, And they got
they were allowed to. I mean, the families of those
(03:59):
that were lost in the two horrific crashes, I mean
just losing their minds thinking what's going on here? Bone
does not even going to have a day in court.
They totally bypass that they have to pay a fine,
blah blah, blah that kind of thing, and the people
never got their day in court. And it's just unfortunate
because far too many times you're wondering, does this lack
(04:21):
of proper aggressive oversight lead to things that could later
be a safety concern. We don't know, But look, the
bottom line is that airlines should be held accountable because look,
I would if I ever get a speeding ticket in
the near future, I'd love to go to court and say,
you know, can we negotiate this down to like eighty
percent as long as I promised never to.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Do it again, I mean laughed out of court?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well, you would be well these days, it depends, I
guess on the judge. But the point is that you
just airlines have to be held accountable like any of
the business, and far too many times, and I've seen
it up close for the last forty years, that tends
to not be the case.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Talk about speaking with Jay Ratlift, by the way, jatlift
dot com, our aviation expert, every Tuesday morning at this time,
talk about load and balanced numbers that pilots are given
before takeof. There was an issue with the Quantus Airlines.
What's the story in this one?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, it was a critical city. Well, you know, anytime
you talk about weight and balance, it's a critical situation
because the flight crews are given the number of passengers,
the luggage, cargo, all of that and is put into
the computer that gives them their takeoff weight, and depending
on if it's a lighter load, they can put on
extra fuel that they need to based on the weather conditions.
(05:34):
It's just something that has to be exact. Well, we're
learning about a Quantus flight that took off with fifty
one more passengers than were reported. Now, when you're talking
about the critical weight and balance calculations each flight, that
determines on many times which runway the crew is going
to take. Hey we've got a lighter load, we can
use a shorter run weight because we can get airborne faster,
(05:56):
blah blah blah. And it's something that is you just
never know add ten thousand extra pounds of extra weight
onto an aircraft without the pilots being aware of it.
But that's exactly what happened. The crew was able to
taxi and take off without an issue. It was only
after they were airborne where they told what was taking place,
(06:16):
and it really became a scary situation. Of course, Quantas
is known as one of the safest airlines in the world,
so you tend to not have mistakes like this happen.
But yeah, and the good news is we can learn
from this mistake without any injuries or fatalities. But this
is something when you're talking about weight and balance that
is so critical it could easily cause an aircraft incident.
(06:39):
I'm talking about a crash, and I'm just very glad
in this situation that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Absolutely, ratlift at jayratlift dot com. I want to get
some of the hub delays around the country in a minute.
We haven't talked about in a while. Jay is your
other job is daytrade fund dot com. And it's funny
because my thirteen year old is becoming interested in the
stock market and I was kind of giving him the
general thing of hey, you buy a stock, you typically
(07:05):
like to hang on to it and watch it grow
and value for time, and he actually goes, well, what
if you bought a stock and sold it the same day.
I'm like, aha, Aha, you're a kid, You're a future
dat trader. I got a guy for you. What's going
on at daytrade fund dot com?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well, my students had a really good November. I think
I made thirty two thousand dollars myself just flipping stocks,
which is a lot of fun. But you know when
when friends of mine buy stocks, I say, hey, that's great,
when are you going to sell them? And I get
these blank stares. It's like, you know, is your goal
to make twenty percent and sell it? And what are
you gonna do if the stock drops? And I find
(07:41):
too many people that jump into the market with absolutely
no plan of action whatsoever. And what I teach my
students is if a stock goes up, you sell it
for a profit. If it drops a certain point, we
sell for a predetermined loss and leave it at that.
And as long as your batting averages eighty percent or better,
you can make a great deal of money. But a
lot of times people get emotionally attached to their stocks,
(08:03):
and if it goes down, down, down, Instead of saying, Okay,
I hit my predetermined loss, I'm exiting, what they do
is they buy more of it. And we're to point
right now where we're having so many of these these
toxic stocks I call them, that continue to drop in
value and people continue to pour money into them and
I'm looking at a stock Springer right now that shows
a stock down this morning on the Nasdaq that's down
(08:23):
seventy percent. And if you're talking about a long term buy,
hold and prey approach and you've got a stock like
that in your portfolio that can drop seventy percent in
a morning, it just to me shows you the long
term issues with a lot of times when you have
stocks that are exposed to risk. For you know, twenty
(08:44):
four to seven, three sixty five. And I always have
raised eyebrows when I tell people I don't like risk.
I reduce it as much as I can. And that's
why day trade, because I can take a small amount
of money, put it in the market for a short
period of time, and I'm limiting my exposure to risk.
I've had my students today that were trading, grabbing a
stock at five dollars a share. They sold it this
morning at six and some of them are done. And
(09:06):
you're talking about thirty minutes of market exposure to risk.
And you know this day and age. I look at
the national debt and underfunded pensions and the social security
time bomb that's about to go off, and to me,
there's a lot of financial issues that are approaching this
country that are problematic
All right, let's go over to the Legacy Retirement Group
(00:01):
dot com phone line Jack am in one of our faves.
It's Jay Ratlift, our aviation expert. You can find him
at j Ratlift dot com. How are you this morning, Sorr?
Are you drinking your water?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm staying very, very hydrated, as you need to be.
Sometimes you forget about it and you do well. You
know when somebody asks you, hey, measure in a single
day how much water you drink? A lot of times
we think we drink more than we do, and when
you actually stop to measure it, you're shocked at the
fact that you may not be getting enough.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Does it count in coffee? Does coffee count as water
as hydrates?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
To me mean absolutely?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Brother, Hey, I saw the government is giving southwester Anlines
a little bit of a break. They had a fine
from a couple of years ago around Christmas time. Remind
me in the audience, what were they find for?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, this was the Christmas debacle of two years ago,
twenty twenty three. I believe it was where their computer
system crashed and it was the week of Christmas. And
found out later that the computer system was something that
was based on passengers onto other flights because everything was
full canceled. It was it was a headache and the
(01:10):
poor people that worked the front lines at Southwest, it
was a horrific day and anybody at the travels remembers it.
And the Biden administration, as we've talked about many many times,
stepped in and said, oh, we're not standing for this,
and they find them thirty five million dollars. Wow, Well,
the Southwest has paid twenty four million of that. And
now the Department Transportation under the Trump administration, which is
(01:32):
a very friendly relationship to the administration and airlines, has
decided to uh, forego the last eleven million dollars. I mean,
after all, they promised never to do it again, and
they are doing a little better, and it just it
drives me out of my mind because there are so
many times that the airlines are hit American and Delta
(01:52):
and all these different ones are hit with various fines
that the FAA will come in and say, look, we
want to find you, you know, thirty million dollars, twenty
million dollars and it's negotiating down to like five. And
one of the reasons that the airline stocks all went
up when Donald Trump was elected, and I was certainly
glad he was. They went up because people remember the
relationship the Trump administration had with airlines in that first
(02:16):
administration was very friendly. So the thought was, is the
Trump administration going to continue this very not oppressive but
holding airlines accountable position or are they going to kind
of throttle back and take it easy on them. Well,
here you go, and that's one of the reasons that
we had a lot of the airlines in Boeing contribute
a million dollars to the Trump Inaugural Fund right after
(02:38):
he was elected. So it drives me crazy and it
just makes my blood pressure go up because far too
many times it's the airlines that seemed to be the
ones telling the government what they're going to do instead
of the other way around. But look, you know, Southwest
is turning things around in a way that I'm very
impressed with, and I just wanted to continue. But when
it comes to the airlines being a allowed to kind
(03:01):
of walk back from some of these fines, historic or not,
I don't care. I really appreciated what was being done
in the prior administration, which was the only thing I
admired in that administration, and it stopped immediately when Biden
was no longer an office.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, and I think both can be true. I think
you can be friendly to a certain sector of business,
but you also have to have you got to have
you got to you know, hold your ground when it comes.
There's no point in having a punishment or a fine
if you're not going to stick to it. I think
I think both can be true. Hey, we'll be favorable
with regulations and so forth to you. However, should you
cross us, you will pay the price.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, and that should be what happens. But remember Boeing
admitted to criminal wrongdoing in the two Boeing Max crashes
during the Biden administration. When when Donald Trump was elected,
Boeing goes back to the Department of Justice saying, can
we revisit that and maybe pull back some of the
things that we agreed to blah blah, And they got
they were allowed to. I mean, the families of those
(03:59):
that were lost in the two horrific crashes, I mean
just losing their minds thinking what's going on here? Bone
does not even going to have a day in court.
They totally bypass that they have to pay a fine,
blah blah, blah that kind of thing, and the people
never got their day in court. And it's just unfortunate
because far too many times you're wondering, does this lack
(04:21):
of proper aggressive oversight lead to things that could later
be a safety concern. We don't know, But look, the
bottom line is that airlines should be held accountable because look,
I would if I ever get a speeding ticket in
the near future, I'd love to go to court and say,
you know, can we negotiate this down to like eighty
percent as long as I promised never to.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Do it again, I mean laughed out of court?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well, you would be well these days, it depends, I
guess on the judge. But the point is that you
just airlines have to be held accountable like any of
the business, and far too many times, and I've seen
it up close for the last forty years, that tends
to not be the case.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Talk about speaking with Jay Ratlift, by the way, jatlift
dot com, our aviation expert, every Tuesday morning at this time,
talk about load and balanced numbers that pilots are given
before takeof. There was an issue with the Quantus Airlines.
What's the story in this one?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, it was a critical city. Well, you know, anytime
you talk about weight and balance, it's a critical situation
because the flight crews are given the number of passengers,
the luggage, cargo, all of that and is put into
the computer that gives them their takeoff weight, and depending
on if it's a lighter load, they can put on
extra fuel that they need to based on the weather conditions.
(05:34):
It's just something that has to be exact. Well, we're
learning about a Quantus flight that took off with fifty
one more passengers than were reported. Now, when you're talking
about the critical weight and balance calculations each flight, that
determines on many times which runway the crew is going
to take. Hey we've got a lighter load, we can
use a shorter run weight because we can get airborne faster,
(05:56):
blah blah blah. And it's something that is you just
never know add ten thousand extra pounds of extra weight
onto an aircraft without the pilots being aware of it.
But that's exactly what happened. The crew was able to
taxi and take off without an issue. It was only
after they were airborne where they told what was taking place,
(06:16):
and it really became a scary situation. Of course, Quantas
is known as one of the safest airlines in the world,
so you tend to not have mistakes like this happen.
But yeah, and the good news is we can learn
from this mistake without any injuries or fatalities. But this
is something when you're talking about weight and balance that
is so critical it could easily cause an aircraft incident.
(06:39):
I'm talking about a crash, and I'm just very glad
in this situation that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Absolutely, ratlift at jayratlift dot com. I want to get
some of the hub delays around the country in a minute.
We haven't talked about in a while. Jay is your
other job is daytrade fund dot com. And it's funny
because my thirteen year old is becoming interested in the
stock market and I was kind of giving him the
general thing of hey, you buy a stock, you typically
(07:05):
like to hang on to it and watch it grow
and value for time, and he actually goes, well, what
if you bought a stock and sold it the same day.
I'm like, aha, Aha, you're a kid, You're a future
dat trader. I got a guy for you. What's going
on at daytrade fund dot com?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well, my students had a really good November. I think
I made thirty two thousand dollars myself just flipping stocks,
which is a lot of fun. But you know when
when friends of mine buy stocks, I say, hey, that's great,
when are you going to sell them? And I get
these blank stares. It's like, you know, is your goal
to make twenty percent and sell it? And what are
you gonna do if the stock drops? And I find
(07:41):
too many people that jump into the market with absolutely
no plan of action whatsoever. And what I teach my
students is if a stock goes up, you sell it
for a profit. If it drops a certain point, we
sell for a predetermined loss and leave it at that.
And as long as your batting averages eighty percent or better,
you can make a great deal of money. But a
lot of times people get emotionally attached to their stocks,
(08:03):
and if it goes down, down, down, Instead of saying, Okay,
I hit my predetermined loss, I'm exiting, what they do
is they buy more of it. And we're to point
right now where we're having so many of these these
toxic stocks I call them, that continue to drop in
value and people continue to pour money into them and
I'm looking at a stock Springer right now that shows
a stock down this morning on the Nasdaq that's down
(08:23):
seventy percent. And if you're talking about a long term buy,
hold and prey approach and you've got a stock like
that in your portfolio that can drop seventy percent in
a morning, it just to me shows you the long
term issues with a lot of times when you have
stocks that are exposed to risk. For you know, twenty
(08:44):
four to seven, three sixty five. And I always have
raised eyebrows when I tell people I don't like risk.
I reduce it as much as I can. And that's
why day trade, because I can take a small amount
of money, put it in the market for a short
period of time, and I'm limiting my exposure to risk.
I've had my students today that were trading, grabbing a
stock at five dollars a share. They sold it this
morning at six and some of them are done. And
(09:06):
you're talking about thirty minutes of market exposure to risk.
And you know this day and age. I look at
the national debt and underfunded pensions and the social security
time bomb that's about to go off, and to me,
there's a lot of financial issues that are approaching this
country that are problematic
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