Aviation's Golden Era ｜ 06-08-25
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Toxicity
7
sentences flagged
Hate speech
18
sentences flagged
Summary
On this minicast, John Katz sits down with his good friend and former business partner, John Sulli, to talk about his career in the aviation industry. John has been involved in the airline industry for a long time and has a lot of experience in the commercial airline industry. He talks about how he got started in the industry and how he was able to build one of the most successful airline companies of all time.
Transcript
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that much of a kid i do remember the great old days of the concord amazing airports like the
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twa terminal at kennedy uh the wonder of flight it was just an amazing thing and now it just seems
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like you know trash whatever wants to walk on the plane wearing pajamas but uh i was talking about
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Trump wanting to bring back supersonic transport, some type of travel like the Concorde was.
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And then I was wondering if you, being involved in British Airways, a terminal at Kennedy, was it, had any experience?
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I've been in the aviation business for 40 years.
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and the company that eventually became NetJets,
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and then turned it into Warren Buffett buying it.
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and then Warren Buffett turned it into 800 jets.
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So you were involved, obviously, you just explained, in the aviation industry.
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But I was talking about the supersonic transport, the Concord British Airways.
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When I quit flying, I had 4,000 hours of jet time.
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You didn't just, business-wise, own these companies.
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And in 1983, we bought Capital Airlines, which was one of the leading airlines in the country in 1983-84.
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We flew transcontinental, San Francisco, Los Angeles.
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We had mostly in those days, and that's 43 years ago.
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And then what happened was People's Express entered our markets.
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They were cooking the books, selling cheap tickets,
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and at the end of the day, they kept losing a lot of money,
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and keep raising a lot of public money just to keep growing.
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He did the same thing, puff up the books, make it seem like you've got a great company,
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and you're taking money out of it, but nobody's going in.
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These guys just keep doing that because of the fact that sometimes they hope that a miracle will happen.
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Somehow, what, you're going to win lotto and be able to infuse that money into your company?
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John, I've got to ask you something, because obviously you're involved very heavily into aviation and the businesses.
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What happened over the course of the years that made it where we had, it was so luxurious, it was amazing.
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The cart would come by and they'd carve off filet mignon to you.
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Let's start off first with the Concorde, because, you know, I was driving back from Long Island.
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And half the British Airways terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport was ours.
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So we had reciprocal agreements with British Airways.
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And we operated DC-8s, DC-10s, Airbus 300s, and I used to fly some of them, but I didn't fly them for passenger runs because I wasn't qualified to fly them, but I flew them on maintenance runs.
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Okay, yeah, yeah, you got to take it somewhere for work, you would fly it, yeah.
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Yeah, and the same thing with the other company, we called it United Jet Fleet before it became NetJets.
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And we flew, you know, I used to fly them, but not on paid revenue flights.
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And now, the Concorde, it went into production, I'm trying to remember, and I think it first
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It was a centennial year here in the United States.
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It flew at Mach 2.01 to 2.03, which meant twice the speed of sound.
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And we made JFK Airport to London in three hours and 11 minutes.
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And Air France would do it from New York to Paris in like three hours and 15 minutes at 63,000 feet.
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So I am very, very upset that we have gone nowhere in 50 years.
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So President Trump, you know, who I know for a long time, and he's always been in aviation.
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He bought one of the shuttles, and he was operating the shuttle at one time from New York to...
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So what do you think about this, though, that Trump...
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Aviation has not gone far enough in the last 50 years.
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And we, you know, when they created the space shuttle, to me, knowing aviation and loving aviation, that was a big fraud.
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Oh, I thought it was going to be the greatest thing.
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I thought it was going to be the greatest jump leap for mankind in space flight.
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And we went to the moon in 1969, and we haven't been back since.
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We've done, John, we've done a lot with autonomous and technologically.
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You see what Elon's done with the spacecraft that he could bring back, the booster, and it doesn't cost as much.
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And I think that's a big thing, but I think we wasted so much time and resources on the shuttle program and not just pursuing going to Mars.
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Yeah, we did nothing in 50 years, which is so disappointing.
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And now that they want to create another supersonic transport.
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The technology now is moving forward, and they're trying to be able to do it with no sonic booms.
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I haven't been able, I haven't been up to it lately.
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But it's a very disappointing design because I looked into part of it.
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Those airplanes are not as fast as the Concorde.
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And they should be able to make them faster and better.
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I mean, New York, London on the new one is maybe four hours,
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and you can do New York, Hong Kong in three hours, four hours.
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The German scientists, the German Jewish scientists
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were so much more advanced than our people were.
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Yeah, Operation Paperclip really did help our aviation industry and the military.
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As far as rockets go, obviously, I mean, Wernher von Braun was the key to the Apollo space program.
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And I think I think Elon Musk is brilliant, but I think it's more the people he hires.
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And we don't have that one that one person that just knows so much about this that can put us over the top anymore.
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That's that is the problem. Yeah, it's a problem.
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And we need good leadership. Look, yes, Trump is a smart guy.
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And Elon Musk, he's a smart guy, but even his father said.
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And, you know, my comment on the article was, father knows best.
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The one thing you know about President Trump, he doesn't do alcohol and he doesn't do drugs.
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Well, the way I say it, you need a strong United States president to save the free world.
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always it's always been that way and that's what we're doing and it's not an easy job and it's not
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some embrace and that's what we're seeing now it's not easy to change the course of a country
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that has been on the wrong path for so many years so donald trump can't just do this and make people
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think oh everyone's gonna like this it's not the way it is would have gotten if harris would have
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gotten elected oh god please i am scared crapless i can't this country would not have made i have
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nightmares i got nightmares thinking about that oh my god i mean it was it was so bad yes i mean
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we were being invaded you know yes literally yeah immigration yes i was i was me i was vice
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chairman of ellis island i worked with uh lee itoka uh on ellis island foundation with bill
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forgazi on ellis island foundation and we believe in immigration immigration yes invasion no legal
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merit-based legal merit-based immigration i think it is a wonderful thing for this country it has
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fallen so far away from that that we we are just letting in people that are so detrimental
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to this country well yeah i can't understand why i can understand if they snuck in migrants that
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wanted to work hard like ellis island yeah there you go came to ellis island don't forget we wanted
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his two brothers had to sign in a dotted line that if he didn't pay the bills his brothers
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inside them yeah cosign yeah they had a cosign for people letting these migrants in and and
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letting the criminals in yep what what what was what was the biden people doing we have to find
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out who at the white house was pressing those buttons allowing criminals in into our cities
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our states and i can understand and inviting the migrants in because what the democrats wanted
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They were falling short of congressional votes in New York, Illinois, California.
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So they brought in the census, congressional votes.
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Yeah, they need the census to show that there's people that are Democrats.
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Yeah, that's the only reason they were doing this.
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But, Anthony, bring in the migrants that want to work hard.
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else i i guess because they could make it seem like they're catering to the criminals and the
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criminals will vote for i don't know john it's insane it's an insane thing it's so destructive
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to this country and all they do is crow about how they're pro-american and how trump is a nazi
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and he's a fascist and he's destroying this country and all they've done is attempted to
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destroy every aspect and every institution that makes this country great they tried to destroy
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america yes they tried to do it with invasion not in the immigration they tried with fentanyl
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they were killing a hundred thousand americans a year disgusting and what they're doing to our
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institutions yep uh you know uh they like there's 400 000 chinese students but you know who puts
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them in the communist party and they pay their tuition and if they if they don't obey the
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communist party guess what their mother dies oh yeah yeah no they're they're brutal over there
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Do you think, John, do you think we're somehow at war with China right now?
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Maybe there aren't missiles and bullets flying, but I think China is warring with us.
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They deposit fungus and diseases upon the world.
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Why the hell isn't the rest of the globe attacking China, maybe not militarily, but economically and every other way, or maybe militarily?
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It really seems to me like China is at war with us, and we're doing nothing about it.
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What they want to do, you know, what they want to do is take control of our country without anything.
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And the American people, and I don't understand the Democratic Party.
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in New York City, New York State, New Jersey, what's best for our state, what's best for our
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cities. And it's just horrible what's going on. You're right. If I see a Republican doing something
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that I feel is detrimental to my county, to the city, to the state, I don't care what the party
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line is. I'm going to say this is not good for the people of this county or community or city
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or state and and for some reason we've gotten so jaded where it doesn't matter if it's your party
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you have to back it no matter what they're doing and that's destroying this country and then let's
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take these these smart uh federal judges what the heck are they doing oh destroy again they're
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supposed to be smart guys the democratic u.s senators i i said the other day why do you want
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the criminals to come back yep you know why i i don't understand it are they america are they
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americans or are they uh you know on somebody else's side it makes it makes no sense john
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john you know that you own this station and you know that we have to take breaks right
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Well, you've got to take that break when you've got to take it.
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But I enjoyed talking to you, and let's do it again soon.
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