Air Travel Fiasco Looming (11/06)

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When you realize Myrtle Beach is more than a getaway, it's right where you belong. Don't just daydream about it. Find your own Myrtle moment at visitmerdlebeach.com. KFI AM 640. You're listening to the John Cobell podcast on the IHeart Radio app. Every day we do this from 1 until 4 o'clock. And every day after 4 o'clock, if you missed it, it's the podcast. So download it, John Cobleau's show On Demand. We've already covered a lot of good stuff. I'll give you a rundown later in the hour if you miss thing. But I want to get right to... Alex Stone, ABC News, because this idiocy continues with the federal government. They're cutting flights. Eventually, it's going to be over 4,000 flights a day, you know, a week from now. And it's because, you know, they shut down the government and they never thought about, hey, maybe we should fund air traffic controllers. Let's talk to Alex. See how bad it's gotten and it's how bad it's going to get. Alex. Hey there, John. Yeah, this has the potential to be a major headache for anybody who's traveling so that the airlines were given about an hour's heads up yesterday before the FAA came out and announced that they're going to begin canceling 10% of flights. They're going to begin at 4% and then ramp up to 10%. And this is to reduce strain on this system as so many air traffic controllers and TSA, but this is about air traffic controllers are calling out sick because of the shutdown. They've gotten another paycheck that has a zero. dollar pay stub on it. And a lot of air traffic controllers are saying, I don't have child care. I don't have elderly care. If they've got a parent at home, it could be gas, it could be food, or they could just be driving for Uber that we know a lot of them are doing now. And Instacart, and they're making money doing that, and they're not going to come into work. And now 40 airports, including the biggest, LAX among them, but also those around New York, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Denver, Seattle. They're being told you've got to cut flights. This is about safety now, not enough air traffic controllers. The TSA administrators saying they've got to do it. We have decided that a 10% reduction in scheduled capacity would be appropriate. So they say this comes down to safety, that we are now at a critical point where staffing is so light in control towers and air traffic control centers that to keep the sky safe, they've got to reduce a number of planes that are in the air. And Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, saying they've got no other option at this point. And our sole role is to make sure that we keep this airspace as safe as possible. This is about where is the pressure? And how do we alleviate the pressure? And so, John, they announced 10% of flights. It will begin tonight, but really tomorrow with 4% of flights already American Airlines saying it's going to be 220 flights, southwest to 120, somewhere around there. But this is going to be thousands of flights and hundreds of thousands or more of flyers having their flights canceled. The CEO of Frontier Airlines kind of surprisingly went on social media and said, if you are flying out, you should be booking on multiple airlines right now to get back.

I would say probably refundable tickets, you don't eat that money. But he's saying otherwise you're going to get stranded and you're going to have no way to get back because there aren't going to be enough seats to get everybody back who it may, if this moves forward, have their flights canceled the next couple of days. So this is really serious. Henry Hartfeld and aviation industry consultant, he's been consulting airlines for a long time and says he's never seen anything like this. This is going to be an unimaginable, unprecedented. unwelcome, unpleasant level of chaos. So the airlines, they've got to make cuts to comply with this, and they can get creative. So let's just use United as an example where they have a large hub at LAX. that let's say they've got three 737s or 757s going to Denver, and they can swap that out and tell the FAA, all right, instead, this is about the number of planes in the air, not the number of passengers in the air. So they can say, all right, we, instead of three flights, at three planes, we've got one plane in the air if they swap it out with a Boeing triple seven. And then they can get everybody from those three seven 37s onto the one triple seven and get everybody out if they can make that one flight because, of course, the timing on that flight's not going to be the same as on. on the original flight. So there are workarounds, but Southwest can't do that. They've only got 737s. Alaska can't do that. Spirit can't do that. So depends on the airline. But with Europe, summer travel season into the fall, now going down, they've got United and American and Delta, more wide-body planes readily available to use those domestically to kind of do a workaround. But theoretically, the impact is going to be bad tonight and really ramping up tomorrow going into the weekend. If you go on the app for most of airlines right now, they are warning customers that their flights may be or already have been canceled, that a lot of people are not going to be going where they want to go. And there's nobody in Washington with a brain cell that is writing legislation to fund the air traffic controllers. Nothing that we know of. No, and why won't they do that? Yeah, there was some talk earlier today among Republicans saying that they had a potential deal that they wanted to work on, to end the shutdown, and that just kind of poof went away. But can't they just do the air traffic controllers? Yeah, I mean, they did the FBI agents. They figured that out. Yeah. But air traffic controllers, no. Because the money is still coming in from the taxpayers every day. We're all paying taxes. The money's piling up somewhere. They're just not authorized to spend it. Well, and you could argue, not to be cynical about it, but both sides want the American public to... feel a little bit of pain so that then it is very real at that point. And it gets the other side to cave and to say, okay, well, now it's bad and that the other side will cave when it's really now impacting the American public. Screw all of them. The hell with all of them. All right, Alex. You got it. Thanks, John. All right. Alex Stone, ABC News. I mean, that's just, you know, people just should not put up with this stuff. But what can we do? What can we do? Right this second. What can we do? What can we do before tomorrow, John? You ought to flood your jackass congressperson's phone and your senator's phone and just be relentless. Everybody ought to put in like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 calls in a row to the same number. Blow out the circuits, send in the emails. Hey, you know what? I don't know. I saw millions of people with that phony baloney no king's protest.

Why don't normal, most of those people are paid and they're with activist groups. Normal people have to get with the game. Normal people have to make a stink about these things and you have to vote differently. I was going to say, what if we don't even vote the next election? Nobody goes to the polls. Nobody vote. Not a single vote. Trouble is the wives and husbands of these idiots will show up and vote and they only need one or two and that'll be enough. You know, I don't know. We shouldn't be so powerless, but we're powerless because nobody exercises the power they have. The citizens have the power. I know it sounds John Cornyn, but everybody, look what they're doing from top. How many stories have I done today? You know what? Before we go, maybe the last segment, I'm going to go through all the stories of all the atrocities being committed by local, county, state, and federal governments. None of it has to happen. It's just because we have vindictive. idiots, fools, mean jackasses working in government, whether they're politicians or bureaucrats or down the line employees. All this stuff should never happen. It's intolerable. No way there should be an air traffic controller strike. I heard today driving in that some of them are quitting. They're just resigning. It's like we're not going to go through this anymore. You know, you can go and make money at Uber. I remember running into a guy who made six figures on Uber. He had to work long hours, but at least he was getting paid. Who the hell needs this? You know how long it takes that train air traffic controllers? It takes like two to three years. And now you're driving other people out. And how are you going to recruit new air traffic controllers? They're so stone-cold stupid. They have tree stumps for brains. I don't understand this. And it's all of them. It's the Republicans and the Democrats, and it's the people in the Trump administration. I mean, enough is enough. They're all sitting in Washington. They're all smug and secure because none of them can get fired anytime soon. I don't care about their problems. I don't care about their politics. We have to have an orderly airline system in this country. And we have to have a safe one. And torturing the air traffic controllers is stupid and ridiculous and unsafe. And nobody should be putting up with this. This is government at its worst. And it's all their responsibility in both parties and the Trump administration, all of them. They can write some legislation and they can fund the air traffic controllers. They can do it this hour. So do it. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM 640. So the narcissistic psychopath is in Brazil today. I don't have to tell you who that is. There's one of those phony climate change conferences. The climate change era is over. The funding is drying up. Countries all over the world are admitting failure. The voters have spoken repeatedly. And Gavin Newsom is left by himself with some idiot Europeans and God knows who else is showing up in Brazil. Yeah, they're all going to fight climate change. What the man has done to destroy the oil industry in California, we've talked about a number of times. And it's only going to get worse. And you ought to pay attention.

To the next few minutes. This is from Edward Ring, and he is one of my favorite writers who covers this. And he worked for CaliforniaGlobe.com. And he says that 94% of all energy consumed for California transportation still is petroleum. It's still oil and gas. 94%. There's been very little change in that figure. And now the oil industry is rapidly shutting down. We've told you what's coming. The state legislature has gone after the production, the distribution, and the refining of oil in California. He writes, cities and counties have followed suit. In 1986, California produced... 402 million barrels of oil. Now, 40 years later, it's 119 million barrels. It's dropped by over 70%. From 400 million to 119 million. That's the oil that we produce. Now we import 400 million barrels a year. We import from other countries, terrorist countries, communist countries, countries that are far away, countries that have terrible environmental standards from producing oil. Countries that are so far away, it costs millions of dollars to ship the oil across the oceans to hear. There's no reason for this. We have enormous amounts of gas and oil underneath our land and just off our coast. Drilling permits used to be 2,000 a year, as recently as five years ago. Now it's barely 100. Gavin Newsom has cut 95% of the drilling permits. And even if you start handing out new permits, The companies that operate drilling rigs and their engineers and their geologists, they all have left the state and they've taken their equipment with them. There's literally hardly any equipment or employees to drill for oil. Thousands of oil rig workers have left for Texas or elsewhere or they're finding other work. If they decided to permanently restore California's oil industry, it would take years. The pipelines that transport crude oil up and down the state are not designed to physically operate if the flow of oil falls below 25% of their capacity. The pipelines are going to shut down on their own. Oil producers in Kern County may have to ship their oil via tanker truck.

They're expecting production in Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties also to crash. You have those two refineries that are closing. Some people say, well, we'll just import more. Well, the intake capacity at the seaports is too little. They don't have the room for the tankers. You'd have to invest a lot of money to increase the capacity. He expects gas lines, not too different distant future, major gas shortages. And he's right, that's going to happen. Meantime Gavin Newsom is in Brazil fighting climate change. Drinking, eating, and partying with all the pompons from around the world with their phony baloney climate crisis. And the oil industry lays in ruins. You'll see. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine, and the cool Bahamian breeze. Bahamara, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels, the richly refined Rosewood, the playfully hip SLS, and the stylishly modern Grand Hyatt. With over 45 restaurants, bars, and lounges, Bahamas serves up delicious dining from world-renowned chefs like Daniel Balloud and Marcus Samuelson. nightlife venues like the new John Batisse Jazz Club and the Caribbean's most luxurious casino. At Bahamara, you'll find every pleasure under the sun and one-of-a-kind experiences for the entire family, like Baja Bay, our 15-acre lush tropical water park, interactive wildlife experiences, including our daily flamingo parade, world-class golf, tennis, spa, and so much more. Visit BajaMar.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime. Bahamar, life spectacular. A burst pipe. A dead water heater. The AC calling it quits. Who do you call? HomeServe is an easy way to handle unexpected home repairs. With plans covering stuff, basic homeowners insurance usually won't. Instead of scrambling for a contractor, you make one call to get the repair process started. Join the millions of customers who trust homeserve right now. Go to homeserv.com slash podcast for 50% less your first year. That's homeserv.com slash podcast. Savings compared to renewal price void in Florida. Summer is here. At orderly meds, we know this time is a reminder that life is full of new beginnings. Whether you're celebrating the nice weather, starting a new chapter, planning a vacation, or simply looking ahead to what's next. This season can be the perfect time to invest in yourself and your health. If you've struggled with weight loss and are curious about GLP1 medications, orderly meds can help you learn about your options.

Through a simple virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether treatment may be appropriate for you. Getting started is fast, convenient, and happens online from the comfort of home. This summer, consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast to learn more. That's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Because every new season is an opportunity to take the next step forward. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. Picture this. You're on the boardwalk with your best friends. The waves are rolling. The band is playing. And doom scrolling feels like a distant memory. This is when it hits you. That Myrtle moment. It's the second everything clicks when you realize Myrtle Beach is more than a getaway. It's right where you belong. Don't just daydream about it. Find your own Myrtle moment at Visit Myrtlebeach.com.

Safety at USC, Thomas Anthony said it's a totally reasonable decision, not unprecedented. The FAA Act of 1958, they have the authority and responsibility to look out for the traveling public and do whatever is needed to ensure safety. Some of the Democrats saying this has nothing to do with safety. They're just trying to put the screws to the Democrats. I'm so sick of that crap. You don't... You don't even have to fund the entire government here. You could fund the air traffic controllers. I don't think there's a partisan advantage to be had for either side by refusing to pay air traffic controllers. I think it's just pig-like stubbornness, just blind stupidity. I can't believe you vote for these people. The FAA has a number of major airports this afternoon experiencing staffing triggers. The traffic controllers are simply not showing up for work because they can't afford to show up for work. So they're going off to do other things to make money temporarily. Alex Stone mentioned that they're working for Instacart and Uber. So even the planes that take off, you're going to have more delays and more disruptions. So this, this is, this is, this is absurd. This is the one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen in the federal government because this is arbitrary. It's not necessary. They don't have to do this. They could fund the air traffic controllers. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm repeating myself, but I don't understand this at all. There's only one thing they have to do is they write a bill and they pass it, and it's like the air traffic controllers get money because they have the money. The U.S. is not broke. There's income tax revenue coming in every day. They're not broke, and the air traffic controllers want to work. They didn't go on strike. This is not a job action. This is the choosing. of like 535 of the dimmest bulbs that the human race can produce here in America. 435 congressmen, 100 senators, and they can't fund the air traffic control system because everybody's pissed at each other over their stupid politics. And the trumpet, where's the executive orders here? Trump's good at executive orders. Where's anybody else on either side saying, this is stupid, let's fix it? Any Republicans, any Democrats, Trump, anybody in the administration, anybody? Crickets. Nobody's answering me. You're the only one answering me. I know. Well, because I'm really pissed off at this situation. I got a lot of travel this week. This is all about me. No, I know it's all about you, but it's going to be a lot about, it's going to be all about everybody else. Thanksgiving. Wedding Saturday. My entire family is going to be in the air today and tomorrow. Did you book a backup flight like Alex said? No. No. And you know why? Because there's only one airline that has all the direct flights to the city we're going to.

In fact, me and my wife and my sons, we're all traveling from like four different places, and it's the same airline. Because the way they have this set up, there's no competition. Now, I can take connecting flights, and I may have to. But as far as direct flights, I can't believe that these airlines have monopolies. You go on Travelocity and type in a route, and you get, you know, eight flights by the same company. I go, what was the competition? What kind of system is this? There's got to be some kind of pressure the public can put on these blockheads. This is like the worst execution of government responsibility that you're going to see. And when we come back, I'm just going to go through, I had my pile of stuff we already covered today. I'm just going to go through real quickly all the atrocities that we are dealing with right now, federal, state, local. And it's all because of government incompetence. They don't care. They're stupid on all levels here. And it's stuff that is just unimaginable if we had a normal society. And you shouldn't be putting up with any of this. I'll tell you the whole list and you'll see. And then you go to the podcast and you can listen to the whole thing. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM 640. Okay, let's go through the failures of every level of government today. Huge failures that affects thousands to millions of people, depending on the issue, at every level of government. This is just in one show today, okay, that we covered. Now, what do we talk about a lot? The complete failure of the federal government, the Democrats, the Republicans, and the Trump administration simply to fund the air traffic controllers. And now they're cutting flights. $4,000 a day by the middle of next week. $1,800 tomorrow. All kinds of cascading effects from that. Why? They could pass a bill and fund the air traffic controllers. They refuse to. That's on everybody. Now, let's go to Los Angeles here. What was this new story today? Federal prosecutors are subpoenaing to get those L.A. firefighter text messages. You know the story there. The L.A. Fire Department failed when they had a hot spot the day after the New Year's fire to put it out. They had hot tree stumps. They had hot rocks. They had smoke. Smoldering. Smoldering ruins. And the firefighters, three of them, told the battalion chief, Mario Garcia, let's put this out. And Garcia, inexplicably, incompetently, said, no, let's go home. Roll up the hoses. We're out of here. The winds start blowing. January 7th, Palisades fire. Completely preventable. The air traffic controller fiasco, completely preventable.

Let's go on to the fire survivors. All the people affected by the fire in Palisades and Altadena, many of them had their insurance policies canceled. They were without insurance or their insurance was severely compromised. They were thrown into the state fair plan. And why is this? was the incompetent team of Cal Fart Lara, Ricardo Lara, the insurance commissioner, and our narcissistic psychopath governor, Gavin Newsom, Lara and Gavin Newsom teamed up to reform the regulations in the insurance industry two months before the fire hit. It was supposed to ensure that most people would get fire coverage in fire prone areas. Instead, the insurance companies lobbied, got massive loopholes, and had the right to cancel thousands of policies in the Palisades and in Altadena. And then Ricardo Lara cried, I was bullied. Okay? Michael Monks had a report on that from KFI News. What else do you need to know? We have the district attorney, Todd Spitzeron. You'll love this one. This is the Orange County government. There are 12 mentally ill violent offenders. They've been charged with crimes. One is a murder defendant, and there's no place to put them. They're mentally ill, but they don't have 12 beds for 12 violent, mentally ill defendants. So they're going to get released. into the county of Orange with no supervision. Two of them could be released tomorrow. Why? Because there's a public guardian named David Sanchez who is supposed to do the work of finding mental health bed space for them and commit them to mental institutions. He has not done so. So they're going to start getting released. Why? Nobody knows. David Sanchez, they're in Orange County. Just told you about how Gavin Newsom destroyed the oil industry. Edward Ring wrote a piece in California Globe. Expect huge gas lines coming to California. We are only producing one quarter of the oil here in this state compared to 40 years ago. And now the oil pipelines are going to be drying up. The oil industry has packed up and left for other states. The refineries are closing. Gas prices are going to hit the roof. All of that avoidable, preventable. Found out that in Altadena, the standing homes there are still contaminated with lead and asbestos because the remediation techniques pushed by the insurance companies and are public health officials in L.A. County. Failed. So people can't go home or they could get brain damage from the lead or mesothelioma and cancers from the asbestos. That's just in one day here on the program. Covered all that. It's all true. All this preventable. All this incredibly impossibly stupid. But keep voting the way you're voting because it's all working out really well. Lou Penrose is going to be in tomorrow.

I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow and over the weekend. We've got Michael Crozier in the news. Our podcast will be on the IHeart Radio app. in just a few minutes after 4 o'clock, and you could hear us cover all the stories I just mentioned. Tim Conway is on next, and Crozier's live in the KFI 24-hour newsroom. Hey, you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear the show live on KFI AM 640 from 1 to 4 p.m. every Monday through Friday, and of course, anytime on demand on the IHeart Radio app. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine, and the cool Bahamian breeze. Bahamara, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels, the richly refined Rosewood, the playfully hip SLS, and the stylishly modern Grand Hyatt. With over 45 restaurants, bars, and lounges, Bahamas, serves up delicious dining from world-renowned chefs like Daniel Balloud and Marcus Samuelson, nightlife venues like the new John Batiste Jazz Club, and the Caribbean's most luxurious casino. At Bahamara, you'll find every pleasure under the sun and one-of-a-kind experiences for the entire family, like Baja Bay, our 15-acre lush tropical water park, interactive wildlife experiences, including our daily flamingo parade, world-class golf. tennis, spa, and so much more. Visit bahamara.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime. Bahamara, life spectacular. Summer is here. At orderly meds, we know this time is a reminder that life is full of new beginnings. Whether you're celebrating the nice weather, starting a new chapter, planning a vacation, or simply looking ahead to what's next. This season can be the perfect time to invest in yourself and your health. If you've struggled with weight loss and are curious about GLP1 medications, orderly meds can help you learn about your options. Through a simple virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether treatment may be appropriate for you. Getting started is fast, convenient, and happens online from the comfort of home. This summer, consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast to learn more. That's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Because every new season is an opportunity to take the next step forward. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

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