00:19:06 · Ben Thompson, Scott Kirby, John Collison
[00:19:06] S2: Great. It wasn't just that they weren't mad. They were actually happy. They're like, Thank you for everything. [00:19:10] S0: It was better than an on time flight. People can handle, like, they understand they don't want to do something that's unsafe, but they don't like uncertainty. [00:19:20] S1: It's like a lot of what you're describing is expectation management and communication. Yes. It being a key part of the experience because this is high stakes for people. [00:19:28] S0: Yeah, I would leave the expectation management out of it. It's communication. People should expect that We're going [00:19:33] S2: to get patience management. [00:19:34] S1: Why isn't it expectations management? [00:19:36] S0: Yeah. Because I don't want to use it as an excuse. Like, Oh, sometimes weather happens so you should expect it. Like, job is to try to... It does. [00:19:43] S1: Yeah, [00:19:43] S0: yeah. But our job is to try to figure out the way to make it the best possible for you. I'll give you another example for weather. Now this one, we're gonna have to get the FAA to help us, but we started running simulations with AI for Denver in the summer. In Denver, there's lot of pop up thunderstorms that happen around the airport. [00:19:59] S1: Denver is really your bet noir. Well, no, [00:20:01] S2: it's not. [00:20:01] S0: It's actually easier than the other. Newark is the hardest. [00:20:05] S2: Two options are Chicago and Denver. Yeah. It's just a roll of the dice. [00:20:10] S1: Yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna go into
00:20:10 · John Collison, Scott Kirby, Ben Thompson
[00:20:10] S1: Yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna go into [00:20:11] S0: But those say this will help like Denver especially because Denver in the winter storms are actually pretty easy. You know what's happening. Pop up winter storms are what's hard. The reason is because if lightning strikes within three miles of the airport, the ramp closes for thirty minutes. People are allowed to be outside. Which one is dumb? Like if a storm is moving from the East to the West and you have, or from the West to the east, is usually what happens at the from the west to the east and it happens west to the airport, you should probably close it. But if the storm is moving west to east and it happens three miles to the east of the airport, you don't need to close it. So anyway, using AI, so what'll happen is there'll be a forecast in the afternoon for there's gonna be thunderstorms. And so the FAA just takes the worst case. We don't know where the thunderstorm will be. They close, they limit all the corner posts, all the, and they just pull down the amount of traffic that's coming through the airport proactively. Pick the worst case. But when you look at the data, well sometimes the weather's to the Southeast, sometimes it's, but in most cases you can use different arrival routes and departure routes, [00:21:09] S2: but you can keep the airport because there is nothing around Denver Airport, so you have lots
00:21:09 · Ben Thompson, Scott Kirby, John Collison
[00:21:09] S2: but you can keep the airport because there is nothing around Denver Airport, so you have lots [00:21:12] S0: of Yeah, and space to work you can keep the airport running. We can probably reduce 50 to 75% of the weather impacted delays in Denver in the summer by using this kind of technology. Mean, it's just transformational for customers. That's my point about expectation management. Instead of just saying, Oh, weather. Like my previous employer, I had told the operations team, Anyone that says the word weather in my presence is going to get fired because I do not want to use weather as an excuse. I know weather happens. I know we had to you know, we're going to be safe. We're never going do anything that's unsafe and weather does happen. But our job is to figure out how to minimize the impact of weather and you can't use weather as an excuse. So that's my expectations management point. I want to have our culture be. [00:21:54] S1: We [00:21:54] S0: find ways to overcome the challenges. Instead of trying to manage your expectations, we try to set high expectations and try to meet them. [00:22:01] S1: And it [00:22:01] S0: sounds like But we do communicate with you. [00:22:02] S2: What what do see is the biggest limiter of your business? [00:22:04] S0: Is it airport capacity? No. It's air traffic control. It's by far air traffic control. Air traffic control is 90% of the issue.
00:22:04 · Scott Kirby, John Collison
[00:22:04] S0: Is it airport capacity? No. It's air traffic control. It's by far air traffic control. Air traffic control is 90% of the issue. [00:22:11] S1: How do we finally... This is the the great white whale traffic control modernization. Yeah. Is there a path to... It's like a complex technical project, it's a complex social and political project. Can it be done? [00:22:22] S0: It can be done. And look, we have... The president is supportive. He's the most pro aviation. You know, he knows about aviation. He likes talking about it. We have support from him. Secretary Duffy is great. I could text him right now and get a response, you know, unless he's in a meeting. Unless he's on a, you know, an expanded up speaker or something, I would get a response within thirty seconds. Brian Bedford's best FA administrator we've ever had. But it's the government. It's just so hard for the government to give you Just take the appropriations process. You know, these are the kinds of capital projects that you know are five to ten years to get done. They do an annual appropriations project. So they start at the beginning of the year and it's often delayed because of the, you know, government shutdown stuff. So they may be starting two months into the fiscal year before the budget gets approved. Then they take three months to ramp up to start. And then they work for four months. And then they take the last three months to shut the project down because they don't have authorization past twelve All them are. [00:23:22] S1: Like it is absurd. The airlines fund us to get around the-
00:23:22 · John Collison, Scott Kirby
[00:23:22] S1: Like it is absurd. The airlines fund us to get around the- [00:23:26] S0: If they would let us. I mean, it's super politically controversial to privatize the FAA and air traffic control. But it's the kind of thing that private enterprise, I think, could get done in two to three years. [00:23:38] S1: We wouldn't need to privatize it. Could just have a user fee system where you're...
00:23:42 · Scott Kirby
[00:23:42] S0: It's a user fee system today. The real issue is there's several political groups that are opposed to it. The biggest being private jets who today... Airlines pay 100% of the fees that... The FAA is airline funded. We pay 100%. And essentially it's free, 99%. Essentially it's free, you know, to fly private jets. They're a really powerful lobby and I think that's probably the biggest impediment to, you know, modernizing the FAA. The problem is anything, even anything that's done through the government, it's, you know, like you go and like the government's just not efficient at that stuff. Like, is the best FAA, best DOT we've ever had. But like the conversations they have are, you know, on Capitol Hill is, Well, how many jobs are you going put in my district? And so like think about air traffic control. Air traffic controllers don't need to be at airports. They mostly sit in basements, look at screens. Like being in a centralized facility anywhere in the country. Instead, they're like, There's an air traffic control facility in every single district for political reasons. And it makes it incredibly inefficient and like one wire gets cut. You know, you got one big facility, you get it back up and you know. As we saw. But you have, yeah, you have four fifty of them. Like things get happen all the time. And it just makes the system inefficient. I'm not actually advocating for privatizing the FAA because it's so politically toxic. Yes. But we're doing more than we've ever done. But it's gonna be hard for government to ever be leading edge on this.