Latest / Brian Thomas / iHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff

Transcript

iHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff · Brian Thomas

0:00
Speaker 1: He's the talk station. Hey thirty here if any have
0:06
Speaker 1: carcyd talk station. Thank God for Thursdays. Friday Eve is
0:10
Speaker 1: what I like to call because I love Fridays, but
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Speaker 1: I also love Thursdays because on the fifty five Carscy
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Speaker 1: Morning Show we get the benefit of iHeartMedia aviation expert
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Speaker 1: Jay Ratlift Jay my friend always pleasure heavy on my show.
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Speaker 2: Hey Pleasure, good morting to you, sir.
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Speaker 1: I just wanted to get your reaction I needed, he
0:24
Speaker 1: thought a Rob Ryder and how he would have reacted
0:26
Speaker 1: at the air show where there's two jets ran into
0:28
Speaker 1: each other in an amazing escape. I guess the four
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Speaker 1: pilots were able to safely eject, but wow, the horror
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Speaker 1: of that Jay. How many millions of dollars were blown
0:37
Speaker 1: up in that little escapade.
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Speaker 2: It's a hopefully they can they can learn what happened there.
0:41
Speaker 2: But you know, Rob is mister air show.
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Speaker 1: Oh he said the bar.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an understatement when you talk about what he's
0:52
Speaker 2: done in aviation. I always kidding him about how he
0:54
Speaker 2: had the greatest job because he could go week to
0:57
Speaker 2: week just to enjoin those shows. But Rob like, yeah,
1:00
Speaker 2: Robis has seen those types of crashes where things don't
1:05
Speaker 2: end well. I mean, we were at the Dayton Air
1:07
Speaker 2: Show when they had a fatality there, and in fact,
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Speaker 2: we've had it on two different occasions, so a lot
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Speaker 2: of times. The greatness of an air show is it
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Speaker 2: really excites the youth of today about the wonders and
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Speaker 2: the opportunities involved in aviation. If it's flying those wonderful things,
1:27
Speaker 2: working on them, taking pictures of them, I mean, all
1:31
Speaker 2: kinds of different applications to aviation that you can be
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Speaker 2: a part of. And it's just sad when those air shows,
1:38
Speaker 2: those demonstrations turn into something where something does go wrong
1:42
Speaker 2: and you see that it's a it's a it can
1:46
Speaker 2: be a tough situation. But thankfully, all we got out
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Speaker 2: of this was some you know, incredible video and nobody
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Speaker 2: got seriously injured in it, and that's that's the beauty
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Speaker 2: of it, and we're just very thankful that that was
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Speaker 2: the end result of something that the aircraft themselves, yeah,
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Speaker 2: they can be replaced. It's the pilots that you're worried about.
2:05
Speaker 2: And thankfully those pilots were Okay.
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Speaker 1: Pilots you have to worry about. But you know, I
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Speaker 1: kind of thought about myself, you know, being in the crowd.
2:12
Speaker 1: I don't know how you can control and exploding aircraft.
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Speaker 1: I don't know how far away that aircraft was from
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Speaker 1: the crowd. But I've been to the hill climbs in
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Speaker 1: Oregony with the motorcycles going up this year, straight up
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Speaker 1: side of them, and I've seen them go out of
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Speaker 1: control and run right into the crowd of people who
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Speaker 1: are stupidly standing really close to the thing going by.
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Speaker 1: Is there any any chance that the crowd could have
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Speaker 1: been hit by an airplane?
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Speaker 2: Well, most of the time the performance is done not
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Speaker 2: directly overhead, right, it's going to be we're from a distance.
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Speaker 2: So there's a great number of safeguards that are built
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Speaker 2: in with regards to the distance between the participants and
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Speaker 2: the people that are the spectators. And we do that
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Speaker 2: for all the obvious reasons from safety, because you just
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Speaker 2: never know these things. Regardless of how great the pilots are,
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Speaker 2: those men and women, you're still dealing with mechanical type
3:01
Speaker 2: you know, things that do malfunction from time to time,
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Speaker 2: I mean, and when that happens, you have to work
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Speaker 2: the problem and you know, hopefully can still control the aircraft.
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Speaker 2: But we've seen time and time again, where sometimes things
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Speaker 2: are just pushed a certain way, or something happens from
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Speaker 2: a mechanical situation that puts the pilot at risk, and
3:20
Speaker 2: you know a lot of times it's a matter of
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Speaker 2: just trying to maintain control of the aircraft and and
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Speaker 2: you know, getting it under control before something happens where
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Speaker 2: it ends up crashing. But yeah, you know, air shows
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Speaker 2: are great because it's one of the few places you
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Speaker 2: can go and watch the kids and they don't have
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Speaker 2: their heads down. They have their heads up because they're
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Speaker 2: watching what's going on instead of having their face buried
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Speaker 2: inside of an electronic device that in the zoo. Is
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Speaker 2: a great place to watch kids that just have this
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Speaker 2: face of wonder and you just love to see it.
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Speaker 2: And yeah, air shows are incredible and for everybody who's
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Speaker 2: never been to one, I certainly encourage it. It's a great,
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Speaker 2: great demonstration of you know, the old of old and
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Speaker 2: certainly the aviation of the day.
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Speaker 1: No question about it. And this gives you a sense
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Speaker 1: of appreciation for the awesome power, most notably of those
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Speaker 1: fighter jets just wow. Oh yeah, and the young people
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Speaker 1: that are behind the stick in those things you imagine
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Speaker 1: being twenty four, twenty five years old and being in
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Speaker 1: charge of all the multi multi million dollar aircraft.
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Speaker 2: And just another day at the office. A friend, those
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Speaker 2: men and women are, and that's why when those those
4:25
Speaker 2: individuals translate into commercial pilots and people say, you know,
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Speaker 2: I'm worried to Jay about my flight, I'm thinking, if
4:32
Speaker 2: you've got one of the military, highly trained military individuals
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Speaker 2: on the flight deck, you have nothing to worry about.
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Speaker 2: I've been on the radio with them when an engine
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Speaker 2: shuts down, or you've got fuel contamination, you've got other
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Speaker 2: emergency situations, and to hear them on the radio, it's
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Speaker 2: just like another day work, another deal. Just you know,
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Speaker 2: we're coming back, we lost an engine, blah blah blah.
4:53
Speaker 2: That type of thing just kind of FYI. But it
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Speaker 2: just shows you just how great that that training is.
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Speaker 2: And believe those are the men and women that I
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Speaker 2: want on the flight deck. And all those discussions we've
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Speaker 2: had about automated flight decks with no pilots, no no, no,
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Speaker 2: no no no. We want those highly trained people up there.
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Speaker 1: More topics with Jay Ratliff after the break here, including
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Speaker 1: layoffs at Southwest and don't be that guy who bites
5:15
Speaker 1: a flight attendant. Don't go away, be right back fifty
5:18
Speaker 1: five KRC dot Com.
5:20
Speaker 2: Steve Perrins coordinated.
5:21
Speaker 1: Sty five KRC. The talk station call Kenny Loggins because
5:25
Speaker 1: you're in the danger zone thirty nine fifty five KARS
5:29
Speaker 1: and the talk stagers Joe and I were talking to
5:33
Speaker 1: the break there. How what an awful, awful worst job
5:36
Speaker 1: on the planet. Back when top Gun ride over at
5:38
Speaker 1: King's Island you had to listen to danger zone and
5:41
Speaker 1: a loop. If I was stuck in that job, I
5:43
Speaker 1: think I would have gone completely psycho anyway. Pivoting over
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Speaker 1: to Jay Ratliffe, Southwest Airlines. The revenues up and yet
5:51
Speaker 1: they're laying off employees. Why is this the case?
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Speaker 2: Jay, Well, you know Southwest, You and I have talked
5:56
Speaker 2: about it many times before. They for fifty years never
5:59
Speaker 2: laid a single employee off. The attacks nine to eleven,
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Speaker 2: the financial crisis in two thousand and eight, the pandemic,
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Speaker 2: None of those times they laid anyone off, And that
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Speaker 2: was kind of their their rallying cry. Of course, late
6:14
Speaker 2: last year they laid off fifteen percent of their corporate
6:17
Speaker 2: workforce as they were kind of trimming not the fat,
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Speaker 2: but just trying to cut back as they could, and
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Speaker 2: now they're laying off seventy five people on the operation
6:26
Speaker 2: side of things, and that would continue even though the
6:29
Speaker 2: revenue for the last quarter was reported, I think it's
6:32
Speaker 2: seven point two billion dollars, so the revenue was going
6:35
Speaker 2: up a bit. They're obviously the profits are being impacted
6:38
Speaker 2: by the sharp rise and fuel costs, and obviously Southwest
6:43
Speaker 2: wants to recall these individuals as they can. But the
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Speaker 2: bottom line is if there's areas that you have as
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Speaker 2: you're adjusting the flight schedules, as many carriers are, when
6:52
Speaker 2: you've got an access in the head count, you're going
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Speaker 2: to make adjustments. Either have those individuals transfer the locations
7:00
Speaker 2: around the country where the help is needed, or in
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Speaker 2: kind of you know, roll out the layoffs. And sadly,
7:08
Speaker 2: that's what's happening at the Southwest, which makes them just
7:11
Speaker 2: like every other airline because we see that happening quite
7:14
Speaker 2: a bit. When we see schedule adjustments and airport's cut back.
7:18
Speaker 2: You find out you don't need as many people working
7:21
Speaker 2: at that airport as others, and you've got to find
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Speaker 2: a place warmer.
7:24
Speaker 1: Let them go and into that And before we get
7:26
Speaker 1: to the don't be that guy story I heard from
7:30
Speaker 1: my submarine or friend who's cribbage Mike aka submarine or Mike.
7:35
Speaker 1: He wanted to thank you for your continued support of
7:38
Speaker 1: Honor Flight tri State. Mike is actively involved in Honter Flight.
7:41
Speaker 1: He said, thank you for your service and help with
7:43
Speaker 1: Honor Flight, but also he wanted to point out something
7:45
Speaker 1: to further your point. In the last segment, the chartered
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Speaker 1: flight American flight was top notazi says, piloted by retired
7:52
Speaker 1: Air Force pilots on both ends.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they and they are thrilled to be taking
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Speaker 2: those heroes to walk Washington, d C. And it's a great,
8:02
Speaker 2: great thing. They get the water cannon salute and Sherry
8:05
Speaker 2: and I've been on on our flight two different times.
8:07
Speaker 2: We escorted two World War two vets and we later
8:11
Speaker 2: took both of our dads, which was one of the
8:13
Speaker 2: greatest days I've ever spent with my dad.
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Speaker 1: I imagine. And not one of those veterans or the
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Speaker 1: guardians that were with him thought it appropriate to bite
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Speaker 1: a flight attendant Jay Ratliff.
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Speaker 2: Now those guys would go after, oh yeah, that we're
8:27
Speaker 2: biting flight at him.
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Speaker 1: To believe you, the disabled wheelchair bound Vietnam veterans would
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Speaker 1: have done everything they come. Oh anyhow, what's the story,
8:36
Speaker 1: what's the backstory on this one? Jay?
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Speaker 2: I think it was thirteen hour flight Dallas, I believe
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Speaker 2: Melbourne Quantas Airlines. You've got a man that was apparently
8:46
Speaker 2: drinking during most of that flight, and he got into
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Speaker 2: a laboratory and he was so ineborated he was having
8:53
Speaker 2: a hard time figuring out how the handle worked to
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Speaker 2: get out. So he finally stumbles out of the lavatory,
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Speaker 2: just cussing up a storm, and flight attendants approach you,
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Speaker 2: you know, just out of courtesy, if you can keep
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Speaker 2: your voicetawn, you know, just the normal stuff. And the
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Speaker 2: guy gets aggressive and then he bites one of the
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Speaker 2: flight attendants and that's when the captain says, uh, land
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Speaker 2: in this plane, and we're kicking this guy off and
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Speaker 2: he'll never fly Kauantas again. But the unscheduled stop was
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Speaker 2: in Tahiti. Now, I'm sorry. If you're gonna boot somebody
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Speaker 2: off of a flight, can you pick a place that's
9:24
Speaker 2: not quite as beautiful as Tahiti to do it. I
9:28
Speaker 2: don't know if the consequences that we want are there,
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Speaker 2: but you know, he I do think that, you know,
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Speaker 2: even though the passengers were delayed a couple of hours
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Speaker 2: because of the stop and the refueling, Quantas is probably
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Speaker 2: gonna send the guy bill saying you, by the way,
9:43
Speaker 2: yos twenty four thirty forty thousand bucks whatever it is
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Speaker 2: for this unscheduled stop. And yeah, that could very well
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Speaker 2: be the case, maybe just not a matter of possible
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Speaker 2: criminal charges, which he probably won't have. Most of the time,
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Speaker 2: they don't pursue him. They just stop, get the problem
10:00
Speaker 2: them off the plane. But yeah, that's a big issue
10:03
Speaker 2: when you're talking about the costs associated with a delayed
10:05
Speaker 2: flight like that, and we've talked about it. Airlines had
10:09
Speaker 2: many many times in the build of the passenger saying
10:11
Speaker 2: your fault, you pay.
10:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, as well, it should be a coction of town,
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Speaker 1: a warning to everybody else who might be like that guy.
10:18
Speaker 1: Don't be that guy. Southwest back in the news again
10:20
Speaker 1: here this morning banning. Are they getting ahead of a problem.
10:23
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. I've never seen a robot on a flight,
10:26
Speaker 1: but apparently they've banned them from I guess sitting in
10:29
Speaker 1: the airplane.
10:30
Speaker 2: But yeah, they had one. It was it was a
10:33
Speaker 2: humanoid robot. I think it was four feet tall or
10:35
Speaker 2: something that they flew, I want to say, and my
10:38
Speaker 2: cities maybe off Nashville to Vegas. They took this robot
10:41
Speaker 2: out there, this humanoid thing, for a demonstration and everything,
10:45
Speaker 2: and it went well, and they're coming back on Southwest
10:47
Speaker 2: and at the gate area, the agents are a little
10:49
Speaker 2: bit confused because they're thinking what powers this thing, and
10:53
Speaker 2: of course it's lithium batteries and you've got your issues
10:55
Speaker 2: with that. That flight, as the agents were trying to
10:58
Speaker 2: determine what they were going to do, was delayed about
11:01
Speaker 2: an hour. So what happened was Southwest has come out saying, look,
11:05
Speaker 2: we're gonna make it clear here the humanoid robots, the dogs,
11:10
Speaker 2: the cats, all these things that people have that are
11:13
Speaker 2: powered by these lithium batteries, we're going to ban from
11:16
Speaker 2: our flight, just simply because the batteries are quite a
11:18
Speaker 2: bit bigger than what some of the other handheld devices
11:21
Speaker 2: obviously are. And that that's something that that they did. Now,
11:25
Speaker 2: normally this would come down from the Federal Aviation Ministration,
11:28
Speaker 2: who would make a policy that would you know, as
11:32
Speaker 2: an umbrella kind of cover all the different carriers for
11:34
Speaker 2: operating here in the United States. Uh the FAA has
11:37
Speaker 2: really not step forward to do anything with regards to
11:40
Speaker 2: consistent policy on the battery chargers or uh E. Lithium
11:46
Speaker 2: type devices, so it's kind of left up to the
11:48
Speaker 2: airlines to do what they need to do. In Southwest
11:50
Speaker 2: is taking this step saying, look, leave your leave your
11:53
Speaker 2: human android at home, because you're not gonna not gonna
11:57
Speaker 2: be allowed on a flight. But when you google the images,
11:59
Speaker 2: if it's pretty cool looking thing. And when this robot
12:03
Speaker 2: was in the gate area, it was playing with the kids,
12:05
Speaker 2: doing high fives and different types of things, and you know,
12:08
Speaker 2: people are taking pictures all over it, so it was
12:10
Speaker 2: quite you know, quite the star of the show. But yeah,
12:15
Speaker 2: the agents in Vegas, when they started thinking about it,
12:18
Speaker 2: had issues with that lithium battery. And you know, Southwest
12:21
Speaker 2: is just trying to take steps to make sure that
12:23
Speaker 2: they can avoid any future delays because yeah, look, delays
12:26
Speaker 2: costs money, and right now you need every revenue dollar
12:29
Speaker 2: you can get with what they're paying for fuel.
12:31
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, and you know, I just think of the
12:33
Speaker 1: idea they have those fireproof bags you can drop a
12:35
Speaker 1: cell phone in or a laptop. Then how are you
12:37
Speaker 1: going to do that with a human sized robot? In
12:40
Speaker 1: other words, you can't. We'll bring Jay Radlin talk about
12:43
Speaker 1: gee first world problems, oh no, no Wi Fi on
12:46
Speaker 1: my fly, plus Boston offering an off site tsa screening center,
12:50
Speaker 1: plus luxury watches made from old aircraft. We'll see if
12:53
Speaker 1: you can't get all those topics in coming up next
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Speaker 1: more with Jay Ratliff fifty five krc the eight fifty
12:58
Speaker 1: if anybot KRCD talks as Happy Thursday Friday, Jay Ratlift's
13:03
Speaker 1: on the phone. This is the final second with Jay
13:04
Speaker 1: this week. We'll do it again next Thursday, as we
13:06
Speaker 1: always do. And let's boo, who boo, who oh my god,
13:10
Speaker 1: I don't have internet for thirteen hours. Try and move
13:12
Speaker 1: into a run where they've shut the internet off for
13:13
Speaker 1: the last three months and nobody's everybody's out of work
13:16
Speaker 1: there because they can't engage in commerce. First world problems.
13:20
Speaker 2: Jay Ratliffe, Well, it was it was a United flight,
13:23
Speaker 2: I think Tokyo to DC. It was a very long
13:27
Speaker 2: flight where the Wi Fi wasn't available, and yes, people
13:31
Speaker 2: lost their minds, but you also couldn't you couldn't power
13:34
Speaker 2: your device there was a lot of you know issues,
13:37
Speaker 2: there none that was serious enough to cancel the flight.
13:40
Speaker 2: So yes, people had to endure, oh my gosh, not
13:44
Speaker 2: having access to their electronics for as long as they
13:48
Speaker 2: would like. The onboard entertainment system as well wasn't operating
13:52
Speaker 2: for United, and many people thought that the flight should
13:55
Speaker 2: be canceled. Well, yeah, it's okay. I mean, the number
14:00
Speaker 2: one reason you're there is for transportation to get safely
14:02
Speaker 2: from point A to point B.
14:04
Speaker 1: I thought, we have a.
14:06
Speaker 2: Minimum equipment list, which means if there's certain components of
14:10
Speaker 2: an aircraft that aren't operating as they should, the flight's canceled.
14:13
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. The entertainment system is not a part of
14:16
Speaker 2: the MEL so as a result, they're going to operate
14:19
Speaker 2: the aircraft and they're gonna apologize now. I did feel
14:22
Speaker 2: for the business men and women that maybe on that
14:25
Speaker 2: you know, thirteen fourteen or a flight whatever it was,
14:29
Speaker 2: that they might have been wanting to spend five or
14:30
Speaker 2: six hours of work time to get things done. And
14:34
Speaker 2: you know, if you lose power on your device, you
14:36
Speaker 2: can't you charge it up back up. Yeah, that's gonna
14:39
Speaker 2: be a problem. So certainly there were some real time
14:42
Speaker 2: issues for people that were working, But most of the
14:45
Speaker 2: outrage came from people who, yeah, had absolutely no clue
14:49
Speaker 2: what to do absence of electronic device. You know, hopefully
14:52
Speaker 2: you've got a book or something that's what you can Yeah,
14:55
Speaker 2: oh yeah, yeah, the old the old school type thing
14:57
Speaker 2: had turn pages because you can only sleep and rest
15:00
Speaker 2: so long on a flight that long. But yeah, it
15:03
Speaker 2: was definitely people losing their minds because it's the same
15:07
Speaker 2: thing you and I see when the power goes out
15:09
Speaker 2: and people walk around with no connection on their phone.
15:12
Speaker 2: There's zombies. They literally are walking around in a daze,
15:16
Speaker 2: totally unprepared for what they should be doing. They have
15:19
Speaker 2: no clue.
15:20
Speaker 1: Have a backup copy of Field or Dust I Aski's
15:22
Speaker 1: brothers caramats off with you at all times. You will
15:24
Speaker 1: be thoroughly entertained for as long as your flight happens
15:27
Speaker 1: to be pivoting over.
15:28
Speaker 2: Grab the I'm reading the Memoirs of a Revolutionary Soldier
15:32
Speaker 2: right now, short little book, really cool read and yeah, yeah,
15:36
Speaker 2: to throw that in your bag, take up much room
15:38
Speaker 2: and you can pull it out and read it when
15:39
Speaker 2: you can.
15:40
Speaker 1: That they're always alternatives. I got to ask you about
15:42
Speaker 1: this luxury watch thing. We'll get to the Boston offsite,
15:45
Speaker 1: tas say if we can. But old aircraft turned into
15:48
Speaker 1: luxury watches. Who asked for this?
15:50
Speaker 2: This was easy out airlines. They had Airbus A three twenty,
15:55
Speaker 2: the double decker, the one that can seed eight hundred
15:57
Speaker 2: and eighty people. It's their first one. They it's been
16:00
Speaker 2: taken out of service. They're using it for parts in
16:04
Speaker 2: different things, and somebody said, hey, let's make some high
16:07
Speaker 2: quality luxury watches from this, and they've decided to do that.
16:11
Speaker 2: Now I've got an American Express card that is made
16:14
Speaker 2: from a seven forty seven, which I think is pretty cool.
16:17
Speaker 2: That's just a credit card. This is a watch that
16:19
Speaker 2: costs somewhere between three and four thousand dollars that they
16:23
Speaker 2: are crafting. So it's a big time not something that's
16:27
Speaker 2: going to easily go on a Christmas list, but there's
16:30
Speaker 2: a lot of people that are, you know, aviation nuts
16:33
Speaker 2: and to have something that's a little bit different. It's
16:36
Speaker 2: like sometimes I saw some of these old Omega watches
16:38
Speaker 2: before that are thirty some thousand dollars a piece because
16:41
Speaker 2: they have moon dust in the dial. So I guess
16:44
Speaker 2: it just depends on what you want. The market's out
16:47
Speaker 2: there if you're willing to pay for it.
16:48
Speaker 1: They just call something limited edition and people will buy
16:51
Speaker 1: it for some crazy reason.