BHS - 7A – Why is LAX a Nightmare? | Boeing’s Urgent Mission to Train Rookies

Why is LAX such a nightmare to get through, and will it ever be fixed? Boeing’s urgent mission to train thousands of rookies. Sacramento’s tax rebate giveaway is coming home to roost. A weaker dollar, skyrocketing prices, and ‘record’ visitor numbers… good luck in Europe this Summer.

Episode Transcript

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You're listening to Bill Handle on demandfrom KFI AM six forty. You are
listening to the Bill Handle Show,Who puts in That? And the mascot
Shooting Starves KFI AM six forty BillHandle. Here. It is a Wednesday
morning, June twelve. The Presidenttoday arrives in Italy for the G seven

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summit, and for the first time, the Pope is going to participate.
He's going to be taking part ina session dedicated to artificial intelligence. What
are we gonna say about that?No, I didn't. Maybe he's gonna
send some robotic pope in there toaddress the crowd. No idea. All

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right, now, as I toldyou before the break, this was a
tease by the way that if you'verecently gone to lax in front of Terminal
too, they are a group ofcheerleaders that are cheering. We're number one.
We're number one, now a littlesmarcasm, Yes, because if you
reference well California in general, we'renumber one and a number of things across

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the board. And I'm proud tosay we're number one at Lax in certainly
the worst airport in the United Statesthat's given major airport, even minor airports.
But in the top five worst airportsin the world international airports, LAX.

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Now, what's worst airport in Yemen? No, they don't have any.
Sudan, No, there aren't anythere. How about Gaza, No,
no international airports there. So amonginternational airports even third world countries,
LAX is at the bottom. Andthere's a bunch of reasons for that.
First of all, the entire designof LAX is kind of bizarre. You

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know, it has that loop andthis was all built well a loop has
always been there where the terminals aresort of scattered around or yeah, I
guess around that elliptical roadway, andso you've got terminal one, two,
three, and then Tom Bradley andthen you have the other ones coming up
the other way, I think withUnited number seven the last one, and

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you go around and around and around, because the amount of space you have
for people coming off with their bagsand people waiting, and the whole configuration
absolutely sucks. Now, we didn'thave the second story of that loop until
the nineteen eighty four Olympics. Well, now we've got the twenty twenty eight
Olympics coming up, so they aretearing up LAX one more time. And

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they're putting it a people mover andspending billions redoing the terminals, trying to
make some of this happen. AndI don't know if it's even doable considering
the layout. I really don't.Have you ever seen you you've gone past
the lap buildings or maybe seeing pictureswhere the buildings haven't been occupied for sixty
years and the fencing is coming downand you sort of can make out a

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painted sign that has faded. Youreally can't make out the letters. If
you go to LAX in front ofany of the terminals that are being remodeled,
that's what you'll see. Please forgiveus while we do the remodeling.
We hope that it's not too inconvenientfor you. Okay, some of those
have been up since the thirties.It is really bad. And a couple

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of other things, which is oris not LAX's fault, is that there's
only one way into it for real. I mean there's a couple of entrances,
but all the other major airports inthe world, certainly the United States
have different entrances. Major import wehave Century City, and by the way,
there is one freeway that is closeto LAX, which when you leave

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you get on it or when youget off to go to LAX. It's
the very lightly used four five thathas known for having virtually no traffic in
it. So on a Friday nightyou go to LAX and they tell you,
you know how normally international flights theywant you there three hours in advance.

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Do yourself a favor, do eighthours in advance. People just going
around that loop can take you anhour to go from the beginning till the
end of that and that's what aquarter of a mile maybe a third of
a mile, that's how far yourcar goes a third of a mile an
hour. I mean it is adisaster. So they're spending tons and tons

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of money, the people mover movingthe rental cars off of the off of
the main area of the airport.You also have certainly parking, I mean
there's parking there, but it costsyou a fortune. So you have parking
lots where they shuttle you. Imean, it's just the whole thing is

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a mess. Also, you havethe ride sharing that's now off, and
you have these buses that take youin the shuttles. I mean, none
of this works very well. They'repiecemealing all this together. So, and
the other thing about LAX, andthat is, I guess, not the
city's fault or the airport utility orthe airport organ is the World Airport Association

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or whatever they call it, isthat LAX is not a hub where planes
fly in and out of where peoplefly in and out of transition spaces.
It is an ultimate destination or isit an ultimate start, which means that
people park there. When people getoff of a plane at LAX, that

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is their destination, which means pickup, parking, getting luggage, where
you have other airlines you go to, for example, Hartsfield is it Jackson
Hartsfield or Hartfield jack in Atlanta.That's a hub. It's huge, it's
bigger than LAX. But people actuallyget off the airplane, go to a
transit lounge, or go into thewaiting area and then get on another airplane.

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Those people don't have luggage that's waitingoutside. They don't have cars and
people picking them up. So LAX, because of its geography, because of
where it's at, because of theplanning, it's a very very tough place,
very tough place to go. Youwant an airport that's reasonably close.

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That does a phenomenal job. Youwant to go to Tijuana International Airport,
where you can also get very cheaptacos on the street. Just pointing that
out. Neil is nodding. Neiland I have had street tacos, and
then we are pushing, Yes wehave, And we were pushing each other

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off the toilet to see, allright, you've vomited enough. Now it's
by turn and you and not knowyou and I have into Tewana before.
Oh yeah, that's a story inand of itself. I got in a
little bit of trouble going down thestreet and well, well I'll share that
story. Yeah, it's a goodstory. It really is very, very

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tough. Everybody was surprised I didn'tget killed. Okay, now dare you?
Oh yeah, i'll be today.I would get killed today. It'd
be death for me. Now.Story about Boeing. This was in the
Wall Street Journal. I want toshare with you what's going on. Boeing
wants to go back to being acompany that makes good airplanes. And I

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know, good airplane and Boeing inthe same sentence seems a little contradictory,
but not necessarily. So I'm goingto give them credit for this one,
all right, in the sense thatthey want to do it, and they're
doing everything. I believe that theycan, stepping up inspections, being far

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more more cooperative with the FAA,giving workers on the floor more power.
It used to be in the olddays of Boeing that a single assembly person
could stop could literally stop production,puld the whole thing up, saying there's
something wrong here, and they wouldstop the production of that line until it

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was figured out. Now, asingle person who says there's something wrong here
gets the meadow, gets the memo, what are you talking about? Forget
about it? Italian management and solet's give them at this point the credit,

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if you will, or at leastthey're coming to the table and giving
the workers, giving management much muchmore power in terms of quality control,
engineering, etc. So the beancounters are still there, but it's not
just being counting because they actually foundbeans in the fuselage, as you know

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that in the walls, and theyyou know what do they bring not workers?
They bring in the bean counters.That almost worked, didn't it?
Not quite? Sometimes you try,sometimes it doesn't work in any case,
So they're trying. But here's theproblem. And it happens across the board.
This isn't manufacturing across the country,particularly in the aerospace business, particularly

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at Boeing, the workforce has undergonea dramatic transformation in recent years. Forget
about the problems that Boeing has.We're just talking about hiring workers, which
has to do Why because senior machinistsretired when the pandemic hit and they're replaced,

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but the replaced with junior people,untrained people, and that becomes really
tough. So the company right nowis racing the demand for new jets.
And that's oh because Max eight Maxnine airplanes were put on hold for what
eighteen months. There's a backlog ofplanes because there's only so many airplanes that

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air Bus can manufacture. So whatdoes an airline do. Do they wait
four years for Airbus and get inline, or they go, okay,
we'll buy one from Boeing where theweight is only a year year and a
half. So there's still a backlogand Boeing is racing to catch up.
Not because it's such a great airplanethat people are clamoring for it. It's

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because there's only two airlines, onlytwo manufacturing coming to the world that do
this sort of stuff, and that'sAirbus and Boeing. You go to the
Rent and Washington factory where the seventhirty seven is built, Go to McDonald's
restaurant. What do they have incommon? Big banner outside says we're hiring.

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So the problem is, as I'vesaid, and they're going to experience
this for a while, is theydon't have trained employees. They don't have
trained assembly workers. It takes months. And I'll tell you why. You'd
figure, okay, one widget,all right, You want to get a
job on the assembly line at GM, for example, and you do one

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part, you put on a tire. It doesn't take it that long to
put on a tire and put onthe lug nuts. When it comes to
putting airplanes together, there are somany millions of parts that each worker does
ten or twelve or fifteen things.And you have a seasoned, well trained

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worker who's been there forever can figureout how to deal with this. What's
the end around? Still keep itsafe, just make it happen. You
have a new employee, you know, there's not much there. It takes
a long time, and it's goingto take them a long time. Also,
there was buybacks stock it's it's goingto be tough. Now does that

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mean you no longer fly new airplanes? Well, to give you an idea,
where when I got on a Boweing, I used to get and I
do a fair amount of flying.Certainly I did more so than I do.
Now. I get on an airplaneand I knew it was a Boeing,
and I felt good. I wasnot getting on the best airplane in
the world. Now I get onan airplane Boeing, and I do two

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things I've always done. This isin the door jam there is a little
placard just like your car, witha VIN number and the year it was
made, et cetera. Same thinggoes for jetliners. I mean you go
on and a three eighty that hassix hundred people in it. There's that
little placard in the georg jam.The VN number of the plane, the

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serial number when it was manufactured,gives the date when it was certified.
And I used to look at that, and of course the newer the plane,
the better I felt. It's alittle rough getting on airplanes are as
old as you are, so Iwould feel great that it was a new
airplane. I'd feel great that itwas Boeing and I knew. Okay,

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now I'm feeling terrific. I feelsafe today. The newer the Boeing airplane
is the more dangerous I think itis. I'll take a twenty five triple
seven, twenty five year old tripleseven that I will to a new airplane.
That's number one. That new doesn'tmean best anymore. And number two,

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Boeing doesn't really mean Boeing anymore,not like the Boeing we knew.
Are they going to come back?Yeah? They are? Is it going
to take a while? Years?And those bean counters not only did they
were not able to find the beansin this fuselage, they had to get
a season worker to do that,but the decisions they made costs the company

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and the shareholders billions of dollars.You go from a company where engineering and
safety with absolutely primary, far morethan profits, to go to the other
way. And this is people gettingon an airplane. Okay, you think
that's not important, all right?Now, let me tell you what happened

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a couple of years ago, andthere was a post pandemic middle class tax
refund. The law was passed bySacramento, the governor signed it, made
a very big deal about it becausewe're gonna help the middle class. By
the way, it was nine pointfive billion dollars. Okay, now,

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and this is when we were lookingat surpluses like crazy. California is a
very tough state in terms of tryingto figure out how much money comes in
because the majority of the money comesin on taxes based on income taxes.
The wealthy pay all the taxes.Middle class doesn't exist in terms of taxation.
Of course, the lower class financially, those at the bottom don't pay

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tax at all. Middle class notreally, it's all the healthy. I
mean, the top eighty percent ispaid by the top twenty and I think
the top ten percent or fifteen percentof the tax is paid by the top
two percent of earners. I mean, it's crazy here in California. Okay.
So nine point five billion dollars outthe window, and there is going
to be There is at this pointa projected forty five billion dollar deficit this

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year. Okay. When the billwas passed to twenty twenty two, one
hundred billion dollar surplus, most legislatorswere up for reelection. Newsom was running
for a second term. Yip bie, kaya, we got money, let's
spend it. So out it cameso here it was. First of all,
it wasn't a refund at all.It was a straight giveaway out of

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the general of the general fund.And do you know that a lot of
people didn't know it was coming anddidn't even care, didn't want it.
There are millionaires out there that gotthe money. The grants literally ranged from
two hundred per individual two thousand dollarsper couple, depending on incomes. For

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example, individuals earning up to twohundred and fifty thousand dollars got money.
Couples earning five hundred thousand dollars gotmoney. Wow. And one big problem
is that we California, the legislaturethey have to balance the budget. They

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don't necessarily have to balance the budget. What ends up happening is that if
the Senate and the Assembly doesn't balancethe budget, they don't get paid anymore.
All pay stops. They're now workingfor free. Oops. So we
get a balanced budget. But dowe get a balanced budget. We do

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not get a balanced budget. Weget a fake erstz. We'll call it
a budget budget. That's like,you can't you need two thirds to pass
a new tax, you need twothirds of the voters or six spens of
the voters passing tacks. So let'snot call it a tax. Let's call
it a fee because as a fee, attax not legally no, no,

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no, and so you can befeed to death. My favorite one is
the kangaroo rat fee in the cityof San Bernardino, the Inland Empire.
When a developer bills there is actuallya payment per square foot to keep the
kangaroo rats indigenous habitat going. Whynot, Well, California the legislature does

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the same thing. So what theydo is they pass this budget that really
doesn't exist, so technically it works, and then they follow up with trailer
bills that are going to be passed. And by the way, these trailer
bills don't have hearings. They justhappen. The California way of doing business
is very, very difficult. Itdoesn't work. And so why such a

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huge deficit. Well, income hasdropped even though people are doing great.
The income of individuals, if they'renot all in the stock market, has
actually come down relative to the amountof money that came in pre pandemic.
And there are also two other issues. Medical providers are getting more money.
Inflation has just completely killed everybody medicalproviders because keep in mind, this is

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the legislature that wants to reimburse medicalproviders, because we believe in giving as
much medicine to people don't have moneyas possible. Different issue at some point,
and so you have reimbursement rates wentup, and now the governor's saying
he's going to take away almost sevenbillion dollars for that. Now the fighting
is really starting. A lot ofdoctors been turning away medical patients because they're

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losing money on it. At thesame time, the recipient so those eligible
for medical is expanding. For example, here's what Newsom did, and that
is the list of those eligible formedical has expanded to include undocumented immigrants ages

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twenty six to forty nine. They'renow eligible for medical. They make it
across the border, boom, theyget medical help from the state, from
US the taxpayers. And then lastyear Newsom signed a bill to raise the
minimum hourly wage for healthcare workers totwenty five dollars an hour. Forget about
the twenty dollars an hour for fastfood, twenty five bucks an hour,

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and the governor said to labor negotiators. In no way in hell would he
allow the increase to take effect ifthe state face this kind of a deficit.
So it's not coming into effect.But you know, look at this,
you immediately count out. You gotthe healthcare workers enormously powerful, the
unions and saying twenty five bucks anhour minimum. It's tough. It's tough,

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but the bottom line, if yougot money. There's a story in
which a guy who just makes morebuckets of money and he got two hundred
dollars and he goes, why why'dyou give me two hundred dollars? I
mean, he cashed it. That'sour state. Congratulations. All right,
vacations summertime is coming. And overthe years been listening to this show at

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all. You know that summer vacations. I generally like to go to Europe
because I just have this thing aboutEurope. My family comes from Europe,
and I just like the place.And well, at one point it was
very very expensive, then it gotrelatively cheap, and now it has gone
through the roof again. And I'mgonna tell you why. But first let's
start with the crowds. Last summerI was in Venice. It was the

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analogy here is the worst day atDisneyland and Neil. You can come in
on this in the summer when theyhave actually closed the park for a time
because there are too many people insidethe park. That was Venice, except
they didn't close down Venice. Andevery city I went to it was that

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crazy. Crowds have not gotten anybetter. The dollar has gotten stronger,
which is great for them over there, because it's bad for us when the
dollar is stronger. I have thatright, yes, when the doll No,
it's good for traveling when the dollaris stronger. Never Mind, I've
conflated the two. I always getthat mixed up good bad. But that's
not the point. Okay, letme move on and actually talk about something.

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I know what I'm talking about,unlike the last thirty seconds, and
that is the crowds have get havegotten so crazy. Hotels and tours have
gotten nuts. Eifefull Tower. Youwant to go in the awful Tower.
It's like forty. By the way, if you ever go to Paris,
don't go up on the Eiffel Tower. You want to know why, because
you can't see the Eiffel Tower fromthe Eiffel Tower when you go to Paris.

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You want to see the Eiffel Tower. I'm gonna give you some hints
here. But here's what's going on. It has gotten so crowded, the
prices have gotten so nuts. Thehotels, I mean the tours themselves,
I mean all of the You wantto go on the Sane River, you
have to almost buy a boat.Everything is hideously expensive. So is there

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a secret here? Yes. Atravel writer recently wrote about how to get
around Europe and it is pretty impressive. To say the least, you go
to a third rate hotel in asecond rate city, and I am not

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kidding. That's not me just tryingto be funny. Go to the major
cities. Maybe you go in fora day, but you don't camp out.
You don't go to away five starhotel. By the way, five
star hotels are actually four star hotelswhere we are, and a three star
hotel in Europe is like a motelsix without sheets, but it's reasonably clean.

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They just don't do it unless you'resaying it one of the I mean
the big, big hotels. Youknow, you go to Wilangham or at
George Sink in Paris, Langham andLondon, the Daniellie in Venice, which
I have actually been to that Iactually walked in the lobby and looked around
and said, damn, this isimpressive, and then walked out and went
to the hotel down the street becauseI wasn't going to pay that kind of

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money. The point is, ifyou're going to Europe, number one,
don't And if it's going to beone, if it's one of those lifetimes
or g we're saving up money togo, do yourself a favor, please
don't go. You know, wehave great spots to go to. Here.
We have the great deserts out wherethe great deserts are where you can

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visit a great desert. And I'lltell you where it's not crowded, Death
Valley in the middle of the summer. Okay, one hundred and thirty four
degrees, a little bit warm,but you're not going to see huge crowds.
You go to the major centers inEurope, you're going to see huge
crowds. It just ain't the same. Oh here's a quick one by the
way, and just a little factoid. Do you know the single what,

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the single most reason that tourism explodedaround the world. It just exploded.
It was the seven forty seven.It was the introduction of the seven forty
seven that turbo propped or not turtleprop turbojet. It turboed people visiting around

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the world, and then it wentdownhill from there. Damn seven seven And
I do you know how many ofthem falling out of the sky. None.
I don't think any seven forty sevensalthough another little questions. I got
it. This is Tangent City.The worst crash in the world was two
seven forty seven sad you know thattenar reef. They were on the runway.

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They were both taking off runways,ran into each other and boom,
six hundred and something people died.Wasn't even in the air. Okay,
that's the worst air, not airdisaster. All right, Where do we
go from here? Pretty well done? I already talked about. Oh one
other thing. Even though the dollaris stronger, The good news is the

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Czech corona is a good deal rightnow. The Hungarian forent, the Ukrainian
no, the Ukrainian kryvnigig or Khryvnia. There's a ten percent discount if you
know how to pronounce it. Thoseat least you're gonna find reasonable places.
Okay, we're done, guys,I don't know where I went with that
one. Kf I Am six fourtyLive everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've

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been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday through Friday six
am to nine am, and anytimeon demand on the iHeartRadio app