Spirit Airlines Closes & We Celebrate May 4th

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It's going to have fully unloaded at the terminal in Long Beach. Two weeks to unload, well, it's a lot of oil. You know, two million barrels. That's a lot of oil, but still two weeks. And it takes weeks for the oil to arrive. If it's coming from the Persian Gulf, it has to go through the Gulf, the Sea of Arabia, and then down across the Atlantic and then down around the... around South America, down the tip, straight to Magellan and down to Cape Verde and then up the coast. I mean, it's a long, long trip. Can't go through the Panama Canal. We talked about that before because these oil tankers are way, way too big. And the good news is it doesn't change very much for us in March and April. So while this war was going on, oil deliveries to us have remained pretty steady. Now, the state imports about 75% of the oil from foreign countries. So, wow, how much of that is from the Persian Gulf? Well, maybe 30%. And where we get our oil, Brazil, Iraq, Guyana, Canada, Ecuador, Argentina, Saudi Arabia. are the international supplier. So right now we're doing okay. In March and April, we're doing, we're reasonably doing, I mean, we're doing reasonably well. The problem is what happens if the straight remains closed and doesn't look like it's going to open any time soon. Well, now we've got some issues going on because it's not just a question of the cost of oil, which is becoming astronomical. I mean, it's climbing. Gas only went up a penny since yesterday. And there were days when it was going up five, six cents a day. I think in one day it went up 14 cents or something completely crazy. And so it's not just the cost of the oil, but the limited supply. For example, the company that has the most oil right now is Chevron. And Chevron's being very generous because as the other oil companies are asking Chevron to share some of their oil, Chevron has graciously said, you can go pound sand if you think we're going to give you any of our oil. It just is not going to happen. And so according to Susan Bell, a senior VP at a consulting firm, Rysstad Energy, she said that refiners have to source from elsewhere. They don't have options. And it's too early to say how we are we Californian, the refineries, are going to backfill the loss of Persian Gulf oil. Now, Europe is in a lot more trouble than we are. You refiners typically plan about two months ahead. And at this point, no one really knows.

Looking to import more oil, more oils, looking to import oil from countries they have already sourced, maybe get some more. Looking to Brazil, possibly. But it's different, not qualities, but different kinds of oil. There's heavy grade, there's Brent, there's light oil, light crude. And these are different categories of oil. And the refineries are built. And what they're manufactured and their devised to do is deal with a kind of oil, a certain kind of oil. So if heavy crude doesn't come in and a refinery only refines heavy crude for a switchover can take months and months. So it is a mess going on right now. What's going to happen? I don't know. It's up in the air. Be prepared for very heavy price increases. Big ones. Look what happened to Spirit Airline over the last couple of days. They shut down on Saturday. Just shut down. Out of business. Because they couldn't afford the oil anymore. And we're getting... Oh, what's going to happen? You're going to see surcharges. We already got hit with our first surcharge. Our pool guy is adding $16 a month to the cost of cleaning the pool. $16 a month surcharge for gasoline. And we don't have a pool. And we're still paying $16 a month surcharge. It's not going to be fun. And... Iran has said it's attacked two American flagged container ships. The U.S. said no. Iran said it has attacked one warship of the United States. The United States has said no. We don't know what's going to happen. And then we'll see what the president does because he changes his mind every 10 minutes. Is there a ceasefire? Well, the ceasefire is ended, but is he extended the ceasefire? He doesn't know. I don't know. You don't know whether it's been extended or not. Who the hell knows? It's all musical chairs, for sure. Okay, over the weekend, some big news happened in the world of airlines, and that is Spirit Airlines went belly up. There was a last-minute attempt to cut a deal with the U.S. government for half a billion dollars. That one fell apart. The government was going to own 90% of spirit, which is kind of bizarre. But that fell apart. So now there is no Spirit Airlines. And people are looking back. And one travel expert said, as bad as Spirit Airlines was, the only thing worse than having spirit in our lives is not having spirit in our lives. Now, one of the things that Spirit did is it broke new ground. It invented the super cheapo, creepo, bottom of the food scale airline flight. I mean, the cost of Spirit going on Spirit was lower than anything else out there. And that created a whole new market. And a lot of airlines followed suit, including the big ones.

So what ended up happening? Okay. Yesterday morning, the airline announced it would immediately cease all operations. Tens of thousands of passengers who were at airports were scrambling what to do next. And some arrived to catch their flight, and they went to the check-in kiosk, just plastered with a goodbye message. Matter of fact, the last flight landed at Dallas, Fort Worth. I think it was... What, a couple of nights ago after midnight when it landed? And didn't it crash land because it ran out of fuel? Do I have that right? Midair? No, no. They had enough fuel to land the plane. And so the end of spirit was not unexpected because it had gone through a whole lot of problems. A failed merger, two bankruptcies, and then the rising fuel cost did it. Done. Finished. And then that Trump administration bailout fell through, and it had absolutely no choice except to go bankrupt. Now, a lot of people, and I've never been on Spirit, by the way, but Spirits, haters are really enjoying themselves. The Schoenfreude of Spirit going down the tubes are getting a lot of people happy. The airline lured customers with dirt cheap fares and then nickel and dime them for everything. You want to book online? There was a passenger usage fee of up to $28 each way. You have a carry-on bag? That was $33 until if you waited until the last moment and then it was more. A printed boarding pass, that's $10. If you asked a airport agent, you want some water, $4.50. So... cramped seats, frequent delays, unreliable customer service. And people dubbed Spirit, I love this, the school bus of the sky. Pretty well describes it. Another. One other line about spirit, you know, people just come up with this all the time. It's the airline equivalent of gas station sushi. Now, there is, there was a study or a survey in 2014, a poll was taken, and respondents said they would prefer sitting near snakes on a plane. I mean, actual snakes, right? Snakes on a plane, real ones over flying spirit. And now we're about to learn a hard lesson, according to a lot of industry folks, that a world without spirit is not as good as having one with spirit. According to Katie Nastro, a travel expert at a flight discount site saying the spirit haters are going to eat their words. Because here was the premise. In exchange for low airfare, ridiculously low airfare, plenty of travelers would be willing to tolerate anything. And that seems to be true.

And there was, oh, there was a passenger complaint that was emailed in 2007 to complain about the airline and how it treated customers. At that time, the company CEO wrote not to, well, he excellently replied all and said, he's going to reply just to the customer, but then said, wrote. Let him tell the world how bad we are, he writes of that customer. He's never flown before with us anyway, and we'll be back when we save him a penny. He'll be back. And so even with figuring out all the add-on fees, all the junk fees, Spirit was still the most affordable option, especially if you need a last-minute ticket. That's when the airlines nail you. Nastro said that Spirit is still going to offer you the cheapest option, nine out of ten times. So it is, well, for example, let me give you some more facts. People who pack their own sandwiches are paying $21 for a turkey wrap at Hudson News at an airport. That makes sense. And Spirit was so focused on budget travelers, the airline operated in smaller cities that had a few other options. And it was the only airline that offered nonstop flights on certain flights. Now, here are some advantages. And this is where Spirit did make sense. is that it offered, for example, nonstop and still gave great prices. You go to any airline that offers nonstop service to a given destination. You're going to pay through the nose for nonstop, especially if it's not the only airline operating. And Spirit didn't do that. And so with the other airliners, the other airline companies had to do is they had to deal with spirit. So they had to lower their prices. They had to come up with their version of spirit. Most airlines now have a basic economy fair. And you pay extra for baggage and seat selection and everything else, emergency seats. Well, none of that is going to go away. Everyone is going to be stuck paying more for less. And without the competition from Spirit, airlines have one fewer reason to keep their fares low. Now they can raise them, well, they do anyway. And here was the paradox. It was a horrible airline to fly, but it allowed more people to fly than ever before. And there's, well, let's say you're in a middle seat, back in Road 27, and you're crammed on a spirit airplane. You think that at one point flying was glamorous and comfortable. In this story, in the 1950s, Pan Am passengers in Coach were served stuffed guinea pig. I mean, can you imagine that?

And to give you an idea of how airlines worked in Brazil, from Rio to Sao Paulo. there is a flight that's called the Pontchia area, which is the air bridge. And the airlines share that flight. In other words, they all come in at the same price, and you could go every hour. And that's something that the Brazilian government forced every airline to do, is offer that service. So it basically is a bus ride, except it takes an hour to go. And I remember going, and I was a long time ago, I was in my 20s, but I remember going, on one of those. It was an old DC6 propeller plane because they use all the junk airplanes that they can on that flight. And I remember, and there's, it's one class. There's no first class or business class because it's only an hour flight. So you figure you're going to be crammed in. The seats were recliner seats. I mean wide ones. The kind that you sit in at home. That's the comfort that it used to have with little curtains. And for an hour of flight, they would give you great food. Can you imagine that? Not anymore. And that was a cheap price, too. I mean, it was just a great. So it's over. Days of flying the way we fly is over. And I, well, if I have to go coach, I won't go. I don't care where it is. Thank goodness I run all of my business through credit cards so I can upgrade. But, you know, how many people are able to do that? Because I pay for everything on a credit card. But other than that, I'd rather not go. You couldn't pay me to sit and coach and fly on a spirit flight. Maybe, maybe for three hours, maybe to Chicago. But after that, it's crazy. And a couple stories we are looking at. A case of huntivirus aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic, a Dutch flag cruise ship, has killed one person, three others are injured. No more spirit airlines, shut down operations. It is done. If you have a pair, if you have a ticket, you're done. But if you've paid for it, I think you get a refund under some circumstances. Okay, and then Rudy Giuliani has been hospitalized. He's in critical condition, have no idea what's going on with him. Now, a milestone has been reached. Clarence Thomas has become the second longest serving U.S. justice. He's 77 years old. He's been on the court since 1991, and man, what a conservative he is. From minute one, he has put this conservative stamp.

Thomas favors overturning Supreme Court presidents, has blocked laws against contraceptives and gay sex, against freedom of the press. I mean, on and on. Conservatism on a level that very few other justices reach. I don't know if you remember the confirmation process in which he was confirmed very, very closely. And it had to do with accusations of sexual impropriety. Anita Hill, who worked with him and was a law professor. There was the infamous pubic hair on the top of a Coke can. That was the whole story. She said it was his pubic hair. He said he had no idea that that happened. And he barely squeaked by. And the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at that time was Joe Biden. a senator from Delaware. And man just nailed Clarence Thomas, because Biden, of course, was and is a liberal. And Thomas denounced those hearings as a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks. I mean, it's been a fight since the beginning. And he has said about progressivism. In this part, I don't understand. Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premise of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from government. Yeah, the Constitution. That's right. There is no word of God in the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence talks about the Constitution, but the Declaration of Independence has zero influence on the decisions that the court should make because God is though part of the Constitution. None. None. And yet, Thomas is saying it's the Declaration of Independence that should control, not the Constitution, which is, come on, really, you know, for Supreme Court Justice to say that, kind of bizarre. All right. Now, may the fourth be with you. A couple things about that line. You think it came out of the fans. of Star Wars. It actually didn't. This was kind of interesting. The phrase's origin that everyone gets wrong, it actually goes back to England's Conservative Party after Margaret Thatcher won the election. She was the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and she took office May 4th, 1979. So the Tories, the Conservative Party, took out an ad that said, may the fourth be with you, Maggie. Congratulations. It's according to Newsweek. So it started with the Tory party. And the pun stuck, of course, and became super popular with Star Wars fans. Didn't cross into mainstream pop culture for 20 years. And it was the early 2000 that Star Wars became a holiday. California is an official holiday Star Wars Day. Today is Star Wars Day.

And now, of course, it's used constantly on social media. And in 2012, things got really serious why Disney bought Lucasfilm. And all of a sudden, May the Fourth and all things Star Wars became part of Disney. And when Disney markets, Disney markets. unlike any company out there. So you will see at all the Disney parks movie screenings, fireworks show, there'll be dance parties, merchandising, so much more, including T-shirts. If you were to see Will Cole Schreiber today, you will see him in a T-shirt. Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, Return of the Jedi. Yeah, how'd you get one so big, by the way? I didn't know they offered them in Triple X. Look at the time. Okay, excellent. In any case, why is it so popular? Well, one of the reasons why people like it, and not just because it refers to the films, this was not made up. This was not a holiday made up for commercial purposes. You have Valentine's Day, which is created for commercial purposes. Father's Day, Mother's Day, all of it to make money. Star Wars, or May the 4th, actually came out of fandom. And that is different. People just like that. It's from the people, to the people. That's Abraham Lincoln celebrated May 4th of the people, to the people, of all the people. And so... There you go. That's Star Wars, and a lot of people celebrate it. Big fans here. Neil Big fan, Amy Big Fan, Cole Schreiber, huge fan, literally, and figuratively. If you look over my shoulder, you can see that I have a life-size stormtrooper right here. I know. It's just completely crazy. And then you go to Disneyland and what do you get? Uh, yeah. You get with the Starfighter or what the hell else do you get there? You get the Rise of the Resistance. You get a whole planet called Batu, the Millennium Falcon. Yeah, all of that. And I went there. I don't know the names because I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, but I did it. The best ride ever been on the world is there. The best ride. Rise of the resistance is every single time. We went on that. We spent all of our time at Disneyland yesterday in Batu. And it was.

Just that that ride is just stunning in every way. Yeah. Technology wise. Wasn't, it was Robin Williams that created at Batu Batu, didn't he? No, that's Nanu. No, that's Nanu. Oh. Okay. All right. Close enough. Hey, you know, what can I tell you? I am a maven of pop culture. All right, something that Neil has talked about before, and I want him to jump in on this one, and that is backyard restaurants. People who creating restaurants in their backyard. And I'll talk about that with Neil coming right up. KFI AM 640. You've been listening to The Bill Handel Show, catch my show Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and anytime on demand on the IHeart Radio app. Hey everybody, Lady Luck here, and we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now, all summer long, I'm going to be celebrating by playing on SpinQuest.com, which is an American-owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to SpinQuest.com. Get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. SpendQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit SpenQuest.com for more details. These days, it's getting harder and harder to trust what you're seeing. Who made it? Is it real? But with iHeart, everything you hear is guaranteed human. That's why 78% of listeners trust their favorite radio hosts product recommendations. And if you own or manage a business here or need to drive sales, that trust goes a long way in creating your future customers. Make iHeart media a part of your 2026 plan today. Call 844-844-I-Hart. Again, that's 844-844-I-Hart. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for $12-month plan required, $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial term only than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. Ready to put a little spin on your day? Then check out Chumba Casino's new online social casino game. Ryan Seekrest 10KW ways. It's free and packed with 10,000 ways to play. Only at Chamba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group. Voidware prohibited by law. CTs and C is 21 plus. Sponsored by Chumpa Casino.

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