Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Good morning, and welcome back to the VIP Seat. A lot of stories today, so sit back, buckle up, and let's take off. 0:24 [upbeat music] All right, Preston, so the big news this week, I think, for business aviation is Vista Jet is back on the ordering. Uh, they've just ordered a bunch of Challenger 3500s. Yeah. 0:37 They raised a ton of money, and then they used that money to order some more Challenger 3500s. I just wanna say, it appears so far the big fleet order winner of, call it the last couple of months, is Bombardier. 0:49 I mean, this is- Mm-hmm... the second time that we have a pretty significant headline number for a fleet order from a major operator. So Vista Jet ordered 40 firm orders, and then they had another 80 options. 1:03 Is it 80 options, or is it... I think it's, it's 80 or maybe even 120 more options. [chuckles] It's a lot. I don't know. It's a lot of options. Yeah. Uh, so they closed $1.3 billion last year in new financing. 1:16 This order is 1.18 billion, so you have to think, "Oh, those numbers might be pretty connected there." Um, but it, I will note here, this is over the next 10 years. 1:26 They're not getting them all tomorrow, like all of these announcements are. Um, it's ab- they are getting some this year, but it's over a 10-year period. 1:33 So it's gonna come out a little bit later, but it seems like they're doing overall a fleet refresh and trying to center around common models like Bombardier. Yeah. 1:42 Another big win for the Challenger 300, thir- 350, 3500 line is a super popular aircraft with super mid-size operators. Uh, people love them. They're a great airplane. 1:54 Alastair White broke this down in the CJI, uh, the Corporate Jet Investor newsletter this week, uh, or on Friday, and kind of talked about what it actually means and kind of did a little bit of a deep dive into it. 2:06 It does not mean everybody else gets bumped in line. 'Cause usually you hear these big fleet orders and you're like, "Oh, great. 2:12 Someone just ate up all the capacity for the next couple of years, and it's gonna take me, you know, the, the wait list is gonna go from two years to five years," or something like that, and that's not the case here. 2:22 These were already allotted slots. So this has been in the talks for a while, if you read between the tea leaves. Yeah. 2:28 I mean, and the fact that they got funding last year, I'm sure this was already a conversation that was being had. They just wanted to kind of hold onto the news until it was official, and they wanted people to know. 2:37 But Vista has had, they say, double-digit growth in their s- subscription programs, so they seem to be doing well. 2:43 Even though some out there question their business model and their funding, they still seem to be on track. Yeah. They issued bonds. They raised some equity financing. 2:53 If you remember back, it was about this time last year when we first started talking about the Vista raise. So for those that don't remember, we talked about they came out to market with a huge bond raise. 3:05 They wanted to raise, like, f- maybe $4 billion or something at, at the initial launch. Then they pared that back to 2.7, 2.8, and then pared it back down again. 3:15 So for those that don't understand how the bond market works, it's a debt instrument, so it's kind of a fixed payment, but you price the bond based off of how much demand there is. 3:25 So triple A rated, triple A grade bond, you get a lower rate because everybody wants it. Your likelihood to repay is incredibly strong. 3:34 So, you know, you have bonds that you can buy from countries, and you also have bonds that you can buy from companies. So you look at a company like Leonardo, for instance. 3:42 I think that they're double A rated, not investment advice, but they're a very highly graded bond. Bombardier sells bonds. All these companies are selling bonds to raise debt financing. 3:52 'Cause when you get to that scale, you, you're not going to the bank, and you're not like- Mm-hmm... "Hey, can I borrow money?" You're going to the public markets to raise money. 3:59 So when you see a shrinking bond offering, usually, I'm not saying that this is exactly what happened, but usually what happens is it means there's not as much appetite for that given bond, so therefore they shrink the ask for the bond. 4:13 But they were still able to raise, like, over a billion dollars of bond financing. So it's not that there's no one who wants these bonds. Mm-hmm. 4:21 Uh, it's just maybe that, you know, that it wasn't-- it's, it's not the free money of, of 2021. You used to be able to go raise as much money as you possibly could because effective interest rates were zero. Yeah. 4:32 It's a different world today, that's for sure. Everyone keeps hoping for, uh, rates to go down, but they are not, because inflation's been a little sticky, so hence going to the market in these cases. 4:41 You know, and if you want an alternative point of view, we did this a long time ago, but there's a John Matthews episode. 4:47 He's from AirX, a competitor, mind you, uh, but he has a lot to say about the bond raising and everything else. If you wanna check that out, that's one of our old shows. Yeah. 4:55 So we will be sure to link that in the newsletter this week. Sign up at thevipseat.com if you want to get the newsletter every week. It is just like the podcast. It's just an abbreviated version in written form. 5:06 Uh, but yeah, the... I, I think that it's, it's also interesting if you watch some of the trend lines that have been pulling through on Bombardier. 5:14 So if you look and watch what Bombardier has been doing from a strategic maintenance standpoint worldwide. Now, Vista Jet, what people, I think, don't realize is how international Vista Jet is. 5:24 Like, they are, they are much larger in Europe than most of their competitors because they started in Europe. That would make sense. 5:31 They're big in the United States, but they're really big in Europe and in the Middle East. Bombardier kind of strategically placing these bases. 5:39 If you remember before the bond raise or before the bond announcement that that's who bought all those aircraft- Mm-hmm... 5:45 Bombardier also snuck in an announcement that said, "Hey, we expanded our MRO capacity in the Middle East and in Europe." I would imagine that this was tied to that conversation. 5:57 'Cause you're, you're supporting 40 new aircraft, for sure. Mm-hmm. A potential 120more aircraft to support this aircraft make model, and you have all of their existing fleet that will then get retired into the fleet. 6:11 So you look at what Baker Aviation did buying from FlexJet. Like, those airplanes don't just get retired. They still live in the fleet somewhere in the world. 6:19 So Bombardier really doing some strategic planning for expanding their MRO. 6:24 I think the other thing to call out is, um, the super mid segment is less, it, it is, it is less competitive on the fleet front as we've kind of progressed over the last couple of years. Mm-hmm. 6:37 You have, you have the Praetor being supported primarily by FlexJet, also by NetJets, but really the Challenger 3500 is pulling away as the fleet option for super mid operators. I think that's just interesting. 6:50 It's interesting to observe kind of the buying habits of some of these large fleet operators. 6:54 Yeah, I mean, I think since the Challenger 300 came out, it's been kind of the super mid of choice, uh, from the very beginning. You know, Embraer, on the other hand, they've got the super light of, of choice, you know. 7:03 And some awesome products, don't get me wrong, but for whatever reason, the market and the fleet side, the bigger fleets have chosen Challenger, and they've been going with it. Yeah. 7:13 And I, I think that a lot of that has to do with scale, and like, like we said, the maintenance serviceability, and when uptime is the only metric that matters in the grand scheme of things for these operators- Mm-hmm... 7:24 that maintenance network becomes key. I think the Praetor line is still in its infancy from a support standpoint. 7:31 If you look at kind of the service center reach and what types of, types of service can be done at multiple facilities, the Challenger market, the, the Challenger 3500 market just has a, it's got a head start 'cause there's- [laughs]... 7:45 more of them. They've been around for longer. And so maybe eventually it'll catch up. Maybe eventually the Praetor support will get there to where you're really s- talking neck and neck. 7:54 But I would say that it's, I don't even know how many fleet operators are making the choice between Challenger 3500s and Praetor 600s. Yeah. 8:03 I will say anecdotally, though, I was just at a dinner party over the weekend, and the guy was operating a Praetor 600, and he said... And I said, "Well, what about parts availability?" He's like, "I don't know. 8:12 It never breaks." So there's something. Yeah, there's something to be said about that. I have heard the same anecdotal piece about parts availability if you're not a fleet operator in the Praetor. Mm. That's all hearsay. 8:23 It is 100% through the grapevine. Yeah. But I think until that either grapevine or reality, whichever one that it is, gets solved, I think that the, the Challenger 3500 is gonna continue to pull away. 8:35 It's also a one-of-one airplane. Mm-hmm. I mean, i- if you look at Michael Barber, who's a friend of mine, he works at JetAVIVA. He specializes in the Challenger 3500. 8:43 He put out a really interesting article about how basically the Challenger 300 cannibalized the 605 market because they are so close from an operational profile other than range, but they are s- Mm... 8:56 they kind of stepped on each other's toes a little bit when they came out with the 300. 9:00 And so really, I think what it means is the Challenger 3500 is really in a class of its own, in a similar way in which the Phenom 300 relatively is in a class of its own, and that's, I think, why you see all these fleet operators migrating into those two operator types. 9:17 I mean, you look at the Challenger 300 and the 3500, every major operator flies them. Not most, every single one. And so this just kinda reinforces that. Yeah. 9:29 And speaking of Challenger 605, we have some Hop-A-Jet news that's coming up later, but not quite- This week's episode of The VIP Seat is brought to you by RealJet. 9:37 One thing that sets RealJet apart is their commitment to safety and quality at every level. 9:42 Every operator they work with meets top-tier industry standards, and if you work in private aviation, you know exactly what that means. This is private aviation with real oversight, not guesswork. 9:52 When it comes to aircraft access, RealJet gives you the full spectrum, more than 1,500 premium options from light jets to ultra-long-range cabin. 9:59 From short regional flights to international mission, their team curates the ideal aircraft and operator to deliver a seamless, best-in-class experience. With RealJet, you feel the difference from the moment you book. 10:09 Real people, real trust, RealJet. Thanks, RealJet, for sponsoring this week. 10:13 We are gonna jump into our Mile High Madness segment, which if you haven't heard our show before, is where we get into all the crazy social media stuff that we see happening in private aviation. 10:22 So Preston, what do you got for us this week? Yeah, so have you ever pulled up to the FBO and you just feel like you didn't fit in? 10:30 Maybe you pulled up in beat-up Camry, and you look around and see all of the G-Wagons, and you're like, "I just, I really don't fit in here." Well, that is exactly what happened to TheMooneyAnomaly, and he posted this. 10:43 When you accidentally pick the fancy jet FBO, and it's all of these beautiful, and then there's his Mooney, which is, it ha- is crazy painted, surrounded by Challengers and Globals, and I saw a Falcon 2000 in there, and then you have the Mooney kind of within all of the rest of it. 11:01 So he accidentally picked the fancy FBO, the fancy jet FBO, and you know what? But you know what? He does have the most unique paint job on that ramp. It is not just- Absolutely... boring white. 11:13 You never know, like, what people's preferences are. My dad one time, I, like, took him on a flight in the Phenom 300 for a trip, and he's obsessed with the TBM. 11:21 And the thing he did when he got out of the Phenom 300 was go to the owner and be like, "Man, that's a beautiful TBM you got there." And the other guy was like, "You're in a Phenom 300, man." [laughs] So there we go. 11:30 He's like, "Wanna trade?" [laughs] Yeah. Let's switch? That's good. [laughs] Trade. All right, so mine this week, I promise not to curse this week like I did last week. 11:39 So Jeff Bezos, his, well, one of his, he has many airplanes, but his 2015 Gulfstream ER is for sale, and when I looked at the pictures, I can imagine why because my God, isn't that carpet the saddest carpet you've seen in a long time? 11:55 Look at this thing. It's, I think that this is pre-glow-up Jeff Bezos. Um- Oof... if anybody didn't know, Jeff Bezos experienced a bit of a glow-up. 12:05 He figured out what, I think what jujitsu was, and so he got jackedAnd he got Temu to Miami, so he got Tan, and I think that he picked out that interior before he had the Jeff Bezos glow-up. 12:18 God, it's only 10 years ago, but it looked, like, so dingy and used. I think this was, like, for, like, the secondary level o- of executives using this to, like, go do deals. I don't think Jeff was flying on this one. 12:30 He has- so he historically has kept two aircraft. Uh, so he keeps a primary and a secondary of the same make, model. 12:38 When he took delivery of his G700, the primary 650 stepped into the secondary slot, and that's for uptime. I mean, when you're, when you're at that level, you wanna make sure you always have an airplane, and- Mm-hmm... 12:50 you don't really like supplemental lift. 12:52 And then he also allegedly, and I think this has been s- since been sold, so, uh, but he had a PC-24, which was, like, the daughter-in-law or the son-in-law, uh, kind of machine that would- anybody in the family could use it. 13:05 You could use the PC-24 without asking, but you had to ask to use one of the 650s. Slight difference in hourly rates there. Just a bit. 13:13 You know what's crazy about some of these flight departments too, that have, like, really rich principals that I learned recently? 13:18 Is, like, neither of those would technically be in the Amazon corporate flight department. Like, those are Jeff's planes, and then- Mm... 13:23 there would be a whole Amazon corporate flight department that is separate from Jeff's planes. Like, at a lot of these big tech companies, that's how it works. Yeah. 13:31 Well, that's what happened when there's big, big money involved. Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm sure there's a lot of brokers that listen to this show that are like, "Call me, I'll make sure that that thing gets sold." 13:41 Well, I- well, and one little caveat here. I think if you're gonna market an airplane like that, just go ahead and do at least a carpet refresh because I don't know, that looks really bad to me. 13:49 Maybe it's just the pictures make it look really dark, but a carpet upgrade is, like, what? Like, $200,000 when you're selling an asset of that size. It just sells a little better, but, you know, I don't know. 13:58 What do I know? I'm not an aircraft broker. [laughs] Yeah, it's like, it's like when you're selling your house, and you're like, "I'm gonna paint before because I'm gonna take all the marks off the wall." 14:05 Like- White walls... yeah. Yeah. It's probably a good idea. 14:08 So, well, moving into our next story, if you remember last week, there was a very brief moment in time in which it looked like the entire El Paso airspace was going to be shut down for 10 days. Unannounced. 14:22 It was basi- I think the first way that this story broke, I heard an ATC recording where an airplane was getting ready to land, and the tower said, "The airport is closed," and he said, "Cool, for how long?" 14:34 And they said, "10 days." And he- and you could hear him say, "10 days?" Like- Mm... what? You think you- we- the- that you would've given us a heads-up. 14:42 And then just as it came, as has been the case for news stories over the last couple of weeks, as soon as it came, it was over, and the airspace is back open. 14:51 Yeah, I think we need to have, like, a 48-hour cool-down period for all news because it just seems like we announce something, and then, like, two seconds later it's no longer a thing, and that's exactly what happened. 15:01 That morning, I woke up, I'm reading all these stories, and one hour later they're like, "Oh, just kidding. It's opened again." 15:05 So what happened here is there is some counter-drone testing and national security concerns because the cartels are using drones to outsmart milit- you know, or not military, the police to- Border Patrol... 15:19 Border Patrol, so that they don't, you know, track their drugs and their human trafficking, all this stuff. 15:23 So there is good reason why the Department of War is thinking about these shutdowns and coordinating with other people for this. 15:30 But in this case, I believe it was a Mylar balloon from a party that they misidentified that was a drone, and that's why the shutdown happened. Yikes. That is a big whoopsie. Um- Mm-hmm... yeah, it was, it- so 15:44 it was, it was supposed to be 18,000 feet in a 10-mile radius, and there is a military base right next to the El Paso airport. 15:51 Like, I- from my understanding and in my research, that airspace gets shut down a fair amount. Like- Mm... not right over the airport, but right next to it is pretty, is a pretty hot zone. 16:01 And so it's like, ah, that's not all that crazy. 16:03 And then when they just expanded it, and they said blanket across, across the board it's closed, that's when a lot of people started saying, "What in the world is going on?" 16:12 Now, I would like to introduce a new segment to the VIP seat, and I forgot my tinfoil hat, but I- let- pretend that I'm putting my tinfoil hat on because I'm gonna jump into, in my opinion, some crazy things that have been happening recently. 16:27 And I don't know, it might mean something, and it might not, but I think that there are some things that might be connected. 16:32 Well- If you remember back to the Super Bowl, which was last week, like, a, you know, a week and a couple days ago, there was supposed to be a joint effort by the Navy and the Air Force flying F-16s. 16:46 What did not fly at the Super Bowl? The F-16s, because right before the Super Bowl, they had increased operational activity for the F-16s, and so therefore they could not actually have the F-16s at the Super Bowl. 17:00 That's weird. 17:01 I'm just saying that I don't know if all of these incidents are isolated, but there's been a lot of just curious, interesting hyperactivity that happens, and usually when that happens, there's something else going on. 17:15 But I don't know. That's, that's my conspiracy corner. I spend a little too much time on X to, you know, and so it, it kinda brings up, you're like, "Ah, maybe is this, is all this stuff connected? This is weird." 17:25 So it's not like we have anything geopolitical happening in the world right now. I mean, we're sending air carriers to Iran. 17:32 We've got issues in South America, now potentially Mexico and the cartels, and, you know, helping Mexico with that problem. But it seems like it's not even in the news. 17:41 I don't know why, but that could also be the reason for these assets being deployed maybe in other parts of the world. Yeah, exactly. 17:49 I, I think that there's just, there's a lot of stuff going on, and when something changes this fast, and the, and I think the answer is legitimate, but also it feels a little convenientLike we mistakenly saw a balloon while doing drone testing and- With lasers... 18:07 shooting lasers, and it's like the last time I checked, not 100% sure you're bringing a balloon down with a laser. But I'm, I don't know, I'm not a laser expert. I don't know. 18:16 You know, I think too what can happen here is sometimes, and I used to see this a lot in DC because I was operating out of Baltimore, we dealt with that airspace a lot, there's a lot of different agencies involved, especially in DC. 18:28 You have, you know, the FBI, you have Customs, you have air traffic control, you've got all these peop- T- TSA even gets involved sometimes. 18:35 All these people involved in decisions about the airspace, and I think sometimes there can be errors in cross-communication that cause problems. But I don't know if we've really gotten to the bottom of this. 18:44 There's a bunch of different things that keep coming out. They're like, "Yes, they were doing an exercise," or, "The balloon was from last week." 18:50 I don't really know, but it was very disruptive and confusing, and I think further coordination is probably needed [chuckles] as we go forward. 18:58 Yeah, I mean, and this was like, this was not a if there's an emergency you can land here. This was like you will be shot down type- Mm-hmm... like airspace. 19:06 No medevac, no organ transplant, no GA, no business aviation, no commercial aviation. Like it was like it is closed for until further notice, and 10 days is such a long time for a- Mm... for a knee-jerk reaction. 19:21 I don't know. We will see. It ended up being a big nothing burger. We will see if it ultimately is a nothing burger. Hopefully that it is, but I think that the drone swarming is it's a genuine concern. 19:32 I mean, it's- Mm-hmm... pretty crazy, you know, what can go on there. 19:35 So, well, moving on to crazy things that can happen, be sure that you have your landing permits in place the next time you go to land in Guinea because apparently there are two Gulf Stream pilots that are still being held in jail in Guinea for illegally landing at an airport, and like they're in jail. 19:53 Like there are -- and it's not, it's not a pretty sight. Yeah, two American pilots, Fabio Espinal Nunez and Bradley Schlim- Schlin- Schlenker, um, they are still in jail. 20:04 Apparently in this jail also there are issues with running water, ability to sleep because there's not enough space for people to lay down, so they have to take turns sleeping. 20:12 Um, these are really, really severe conditions that these pilots have ended up in, and this is after using, you know, a professional handling company, thinking that they had everything right. 20:21 But the problem is here I think there was military overreach involved, someone alleged permit issues. 20:26 So many things can go wrong even though you think you got all the I's dotted and the T's crossed dealing in certain countries, and apparently Guinea is now one of them that we have to be concerned about, that, you know, people just do what they wanna do sometimes. 20:39 [chuckles] There isn't a real rhyme or reason or government actually acting rationally. Sometimes it's just the people on the ground doing whatever they wanna do. 20:45 Yeah, I heard somebody say it this way that this is probably a case of one hand of the government not shaking hands with the other hand of the government- Mm-hmm... 20:53 maybe with a few dollar bills in the shake- in the shaking of hand, um, and I, and is what it seems like. Now, the thing that I cannot understand is that there are three local courts who have cleared these guys. 21:05 Like the, the, they have like been to court, court said, "No, they were fine." There's an ATC recording that says, "Yes, you're clear to land." 21:13 Like there's a lot of things that are saying this is fine, and they're still stuck in prison. Now, these, this, this is not United States white collar prison to be clear. This is no water, no electricity, no food. 21:26 Someone is bringing food into them so that they can actually survive and eat. So not a great thing. Apparently the Trump administration has been made aware of this. They haven't done anything about it yet. 21:37 This feels like something that they should definitely intervene in, and who knows? 21:41 By the time that this podcast comes out or you're listening to it, this may have already been resolved 'cause these things tend to move quickly once it kinda gets to a certain level. 21:48 But yeah, I mean, look out for Guinea. 21:50 Honestly I didn't, you know, you know you're not supposed to land in Iraq, in Iran, in China, and North Korea, and some of the other places where it's like, "Ah, it's probably not a good idea to land." 22:01 Guinea was not one of them on the list. So, uh- Yeah... yeah, so this is pretty crazy. And they- Well not- And they've been there since last year. 22:07 This is like this happened in 2025, and, and the news just came out like this week. It's pretty crazy. 22:12 Yeah, I'm surprised this hadn't gotten kind of pushed into the media more, and maybe it's the family's efforts like, "Hey, we've gotta get some attention on this." 22:18 The State Department I'm sure is working on it, but let's be fair. You know, honestly anytime someone pushes a little more for the media side, things get more attention, things move faster. That's how it works. 22:26 But yeah, to be just on a, you know, private flight in a Gulf Stream, the problem is people see opportunities, especially if it's some sort of, you know, military coup that's, that's happening. 22:35 There have been reports of gunfire around the prison in which they're being held. There were actually 100 armed soldiers that came and swarmed them when they landed. 22:44 So it makes you think maybe this was a planned unrest or coup of some kind to create some sort of leverage on someone. I don't know, but I feel terrible for the family and for these pilots that are stuck there right now. 22:55 Yeah, exactly. Well, our thoughts and prayers are with you guys. 22:59 You c- you can't listen to VIPC in Guinea prison I would imagine, but if you are listening, we're rooting for you, and we're trying to bring a little bit of attention to this, and, uh, hopefully this gets resolved, uh, and it gets resolved quickly. 23:10 So moving to getting resolutions is a th- Hop- A-Jet has sued everybody. [laughs] So that is, that is the headline for this story. 23:19 So for those that don't remember, there was a tragic case in Naples where a Hop-A-Jet Challenger 604, uh, crashed on approach on I-75. The passengers and a flight attendant survived. 23:30 Both pilots perished, and Hop-A-Jet, after there has been some NTSB reporting that has come out, is now suing a lot of people. 23:39 They are suing General Electric, GE, General Electric Company, GE Aerospace-Bombardier, Learjet, Turbine Engine Specialists, and Duncan Aviation. Uh, those are all the defendants in the case. 23:49 So pretty crazy that this is, this is fi- this is finally looking like we might get to the bottom of it. 23:54 There's been a lot of theories online for what actually happened here, but it looks like we're finally gonna get to the bottom of it. And we have an exclusive statement. This is original reporting by the VIP seat. 24:06 So Jesse, do you wanna read the original statement that we got from HopaJet? Yes. So we got a re- we got a statement from HopaJet. "Out of respect for the process, we won't speculate. 24:15 The NTSB alone determines probable cause. What the final factual record shows to date are indications of corrosion with the engine system, details we do not have at the time of the event. 24:26 We continue to cooperate fully with investigators. 24:28 We understand GE has moved to refine inspection criteria and troubleshooting guidance, and we support any regulator-aligned, data-driven steps that would reduce risk across the industry. 24:37 Our focus remains disciplined operational safety, compliance, and transparency until the board issues its final report." So the report is expected hopefully in the next month or two. 24:48 I think everyone's kinda been on their heels waiting for this thing. 24:51 But all the assumptions and the thoughts go back to the compressor fan stall, which people have speculated, and again, the report's not out, it's all speculation at this point, wasn't an issue, by multiple parties. 25:02 So we'll have to see where this goes, but I think HopaJet, rightly so, is gonna go ahead and start defending, you know, what's going on in their business and making sure that their credibility is, is positive, and I think a lawsuit like this is part of that process. 25:18 So we'll have to see what they come out with. But I will say we invite anyone who's involved in this litigation to come on the show. 25:24 We are gonna have Barry Ellis, the CEO, eventually on the show to talk about this, but a lot more information needs to come out before he can do that. Yeah, exactly. 25:32 I, I think that, you know, this was a super tragic situation. 25:35 I think that the aviation community needs some answers here because there's, there's a lot of Challenger 604s and 605s that fly with these engines that need some sort of an answer and guidance. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 25:46 So I think that as this continues to evolve, we're gonna keep up with it here on the VIP seat, so you can always come to us to keep you involved and up to date of what's been going on. 25:57 I mean, there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of allegations here. I mean, there's, there's, you know, Bombardier's accused of knowing about it. 26:05 Turbine Engine Specialists and Duncan are alleged to have performed the borescope, missed or failed to report. There's a lot of angles here from the lawsuit and things like that. I don't know. 26:14 It's, it's interesting to see these operators starting to stand, I think stand up is the wrong word. I think the better word is to basically say like, "Hey, we need answers here. 26:24 We're not just gonna shoulder all of the blame because it wasn't necessarily, you know, our fault here." Because you have to have trust in the system. 26:32 You have to be able to trust your MROs that your aircraft is operationally safe and is in good working condition and complies to 135 standards and flies, stays on. 26:42 Like that's kinda the, you know, number one key piece to flying an airplane. Yeah. And I think this goes back to how interconnected and complicated safety is. You know, it's never one thing. 26:54 It's never, oh, the operator's training program was bad. You know, I'm not saying that that wasn't this case at all. 26:58 I'm just saying in, in general accidents, there's so many factors that go into them, and this is the blame game that begins. 27:05 You know, the NTSB does its report, and then finally the attorneys come out and try to figure out who to as-assign financial blame to. 27:12 Um, and it's gonna be complicated, and I'm sure in the process probably everybody has made errors, but we'll have to see what the courts come up with. Yeah, exactly. 27:19 Well, we are hoping that we can start getting some resolution there. Speaking of regulatory stuff, we've got a bit of a hot topic today. Uh, and we are going to try and not jump on any landmines, uh, and get canceled. 27:34 That's the goal of this next segment. Oh, Jesse, would you like to lead us in? [chuckles] Yes, I will start this. I think I wrote this down in my notes as, "Are women crashing all the airplanes?" 27:44 So no, this has gotten really complicated. What has preceded this is that, first of all, a lot of online meme stuff that's stupid and isn't factual in any way. 27:54 But also there was a New York Post op-ed that came out from a former attorney in the White House who claimed that, uh, what was the number? 28:02 Less than 10% of the pilot workforce, um, which is minority and women pilots, are involved in four of six crashes, which is 66%. 28:12 Now, first of all, if you've ever taken a statistics course, you realize that six crashes isn't statistically significant to do any analysis whatsoever on what is causation or correlated or whatever. 28:24 So putting aside the fact that this guy absolutely has no understanding of safety and aviation statistics, we did wanna dig in a little bit here because the conversations are happening. 28:35 DOT has now mandated that airlines can't do any DEI hiring, and I wanted to take a chance to just separate at least the facts from the political fiction or ideas. So are women pilot-- are female pilots safe? 28:50 Are minority pilots safe? Absolutely. I've gone through, and let me just read through this so that everyone knows all the research that is out there. In 1986, yes, that's a long time ago, I'll get to that. 29:01 1986, no f-fault found. Accident rates are the same no matter if it's female or male pilots, and this was for 70,000 airline pilots and 500 incidents that were researched. 29:13 That's a genuine sample size that you can use for research. Another general aviation survey in 2001, uh, this was Johns Hopkins, again, US general aviation, helicopters and airplanes, private operations. 29:26 Men and women crashed for different reasons. 29:28 It's, that is an interesting point of this, that there's, you know, loss of control, takeoff and landing for women versus men is more fuel exhaustion, gear up, mechanical, contacts errors. 29:38 But the overall crash involvement was higher for men, and men had more severe outcomes. Another study, and I'm going through them just so everyone knows what's out there today. 29:47 2011, again, no significant differences in gender and accident outcome. Early-Thousands. Another GA pilot error in aging study focused on age, but there's no evidence that accident rates differ by gender. 30:01 And there's also a military one in the late 2000s. Suffice to say, there's been a lot of actual studies on this, and there's no meaningful difference in accident rates for at least men and women. 30:12 We don't have any information on minorities because there's no reports that actually carry... 30:17 Anyone saying that they can claim anything about minorities isn't true because we don't track NTSB reports with the race of the person who's flying the asset. So that's the facts. 30:27 From there, [chuckles] we can have a conversation. And, and to anyone too that wants to say, "Look, these are old studies. 30:32 It's not recent information," fair point, but we also can't speculate without real research, and to just say something blanketly without doing any actual evidence-based findings isn't right either. Yeah. 30:43 It feels a bit cherry-picky to prove a point. Mm-hmm. Like, if you wanna prove your own point, you can make data say a lot of what you're thinking. Yes. 30:51 Here's, here's my opinion, is I think that, I think separating out the s- the safety and statistics of male versus female of diversity hires versus saying that you want merit-based hiring, not based on any other qualification- Yes... 31:08 I think that those are actually two completely separate things. I think that the problem with the report is trying to combine the two. Mm-hmm. Now, here's another statistic that I think is interesting. 31:17 United Aviate has doubled down and said, "We are going to have 50% of our cadets in academy be women and minorities," versus, versus saying, "We are going to screen everybody exactly the same, and if you meet the criteria and the qualifications, then the dispersion will be what the dispersion is." 31:35 So I think, I think that if you're trying to push your political agenda via factually irrelevant or, or statistically irrelevant studies, I think it actually weakens your point and weakens the opinion. Right. 31:48 And I think that if you boil, if you strip it back, most of the good people who have the argument that there should be no DEI hiring, 'cause I know a lot of incredibly intelligent and incredibly thoughtful and not misogynistic and not racist people who say, "We think that it should just be merit-based and not anything else." 32:09 I think that the problem is, is you end up lumping those people in with the people who say, "Well, look at these six crashes, four of them-" Right. 32:16 I, I think, like, a random sampling sizing would find the exact same or similar outcomes because it's just, at six, it's a random sampling size at the end of the day. 32:26 And you're also not controlling for other factors like experience, background. You know, these studies actually controlled. 32:32 We're looking at trainee to trainee, or we're looking at to experience to experience, and this guy's four out of six doesn't do any of that. Right. Exactly. And you can't even statistically say, 32:42 you know, here is, here is the exact cross-comparison. Now, I think that we have a lot, I think that there's a lot of problems in the pilot hiring chain as it exists right now. I think that that argument is valid. Yeah. 32:57 We are promoting people too fast because of pilot shortages. We are racing people through training programs. 33:03 You know, a lot of the 141, you know, it ends up putting people in the front seat of an airplane having had only sim time. There's not enough mentorship. 33:13 There is, there is probably some statistic numbers-based hiring based off of DEI targets that probably- Mm-hmm... don't help that fact. 33:22 I think that you can say that while also saying that it's a little silly or completely ridiculous to say that women are more dangerous flying than men across the board blanketed. 33:34 Like, it's okay to have those two separate opinions, but I think in today's political environment, it's you have to pick one or the other- Mm-hmm... or else, or else you're gonna be labeled and branded as something. 33:45 Like, you, there's n- absolutely no nuance in today's political environment. Yeah. No. But I think I do. 33:50 You know, I think we can hold space for, you know, maybe merit-based hiring or, you know, non-DEI hiring is better or worse. I'm not saying I have an opinion either way. But you can separate that from, you know, the... 34:03 I think what he put out there does hurt the cause. You know, if you wanna, you wanna make some argument that, like, women and minorities are crashing a bunch of airplanes, that's just not true. 34:11 It's just not based in fact. 34:13 If you wanna make the statement, "I don't like the way the, I don't like the way that we're hiring and training and moving pilots forward, it feels too rushed," you can totally make that statement, but, but put some light between the two or distance between the two because you lump them together, and then your argument just falls apart completely, and it just seems like you're being a jerk. 34:31 But look, I, I agree with you. 34:32 I think, and this is speculative, and we won't be able to actually do the research for years to come, but it's obvious that we have a shortage, and we're obviously having issues because of that shortage, because we're rushing to get pilots in the airplanes. 34:44 Everyone says this. Everyone feels this in the industry. 34:47 I don't think it has anything to do with what those people look like, um, but I do think there is a sense of just pushing and rushing to get more business instead of slowing down and hiring the right people with the right experience and the right amount of time. 35:01 Yep, exactly. Well, I think that we navigated that topic without getting canceled, except for- We'll see... there's gonna be people who are mad about our takes. 35:10 I think that the g-- I think that my general communication is, is that arguments are far more nuanced than how they're being presented, and I think that's across the board. Yeah. 35:18 But especially in this argument, I think that l- the lack of nuance is actually hurting any argument that you have as opposed to introducing nuance to the conversation. If you're upset about this, we're sorry. 35:29 We tried to be as apolitical about this thing as possible and just report the facts. But yeah, that's, that's kind of, that's, that's my take at least. I, I don't speak on behalf of Jessie. I know better than that. No. 35:41 I, I have no problem with-- and I think this is the problem too. We have to have these discussions and considerations. 35:47 Like, you know, to just say no one's allowed to express their opinion unless it 100% fits what I think, that's not right. But at least on a factual basis, I gotta say, this guy was wrong. 35:57 I don't know about all the other political claims and what they're gonna come out with later, but the former White House staffer has no idea what he's talking about. Yeah. Very unfortunate. 36:04 Well, this has been another awesome episode of "The VIP Seat" podcast. We are going to be at Opa-Locka next week, so if you're around, come and say hello. Give us ideas for topics on the podcast. We love to see you. 36:18 If you want to follow us on social media, that would be huge. LinkedIn, Jessie's on LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn, so that's our number one platform for this show. 36:26 Like us on YouTube, give us a thumbs up, give us a comment, all that good stuff. Give us five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify podcasts, all of that. 36:34 Thevipseat.com is where you get the newsletter, and then share it with a friend 'cause that's the best way in which we can grow. 36:42 So forward, forward the newsletter, send the link, send it to one of your friends who works in business aviation. Thanks again to Real Jet for sponsoring this week's episode of "The VIP Seat." 36:51 For my awesome co-host, Jessie Naor, I am Preston Holland, and we will see you all next week. [outro music]
