The Iran War Broke More Than the Middle East

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The Iran war didn’t just disrupt the Middle East. It exposed weak points across the global travel system.

In this episode of the Skift Travel Podcast, Sarah Kopit and Seth Borko unpack how the conflict has rippled through the travel industry, from broken airline networks and stressed customer service systems to a broader sense that travel is once again being tested by forces it cannot control.

One of the biggest takeaways is how badly many of the industry’s post-COVID fixes held up under pressure. AI-powered support tools and automated systems looked far less impressive when travelers needed urgent, human help in the middle of a real crisis.

The episode also looks at another travel problem hiding in plain sight: the U.S. partial government shutdown. With TSA workers still reporting to work without pay, airport pain is building even as public attention remains scattered.

Then the conversation shifts to a brighter, research-driven story: Latin America. Seth shares new Skift Research findings showing that travelers in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina remain highly eager to travel, still see the U.S. as a top destination, and may become one of the clearest markets to watch as AI begins to reshape trip planning and booking behavior.

It’s an episode about crisis, resilience, and why some of travel’s most important signals may now be coming from places the industry has historically overlooked.

Presented by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Viasat Ads⁠⁠⁠⁠. Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more!

Watch This Episode

They won’t be getting a paycheck this week, but they do have assurances from US President Donald Trump that, quote, I promise I will never forget you. But first, the Iran War is still going.

I think we had a bet last week, Seth, or I said that I thought it would be over by the 20th, which is the day that this will be airing. It does not look like I will have won that particular bet.

And last week, the editorial team did kind of wall to wall coverage on basically what this war skirmish conflict, whatever you want to call it, is doing to the travel industry. Essentially, it broke the Middle East.

And it broke, I mean, I would argue, it broke much of global travel as well. There are very few regions of the world that are unaffected by this.

Maybe a bit of foreshadow and maybe Latin America is not affected by it, but pretty much every other part of the world has been.

I love, by the way, I mean, it’s going to be by the time this airs, it will be a little bit old, but we did a weekend Sunday special. I was impressed by that. That’s not something you see all the time.

Yeah, you did.

Yeah, I did that. Yeah. To brag a little bit on my team, they just knocked it out of the park with just the breadth of all the different ways this conflict has impacted travel.

The one that I really loved the most or I thought was the most interesting was, well, there were two of them. One was that we just couldn’t ignore the parallel in the timing with it being six years since the shutdown of the world with COVID.

It’s not that the whole world shut down, but the travel industry yet again was faced with this calamity that was, I was going to say it was unexpected. I don’t know how unexpected it was.

I went back to our little internal chat, and when I put it in, I was like, do you think Tehran is going to fall?

3:06

AI Fails in Crisis

Can we get ready for this? I mean, that was way back in January. So it’s not like the world did not know this was coming.

But unfortunately, for the travel industry, a lot of the systems that were put in place after COVID to kind of seemingly prevent what happened there failed this time again.

And the one that failed so spectacularly, which I just, I don’t know, it’s a little, say the German word for me, Schre-

Schadenfreude.

Yes, there you go. You know, our robot friends, our robot overlords did not do what they, I mean, they didn’t take over the world. They didn’t solve everything.

They didn’t fix everything. It was not the, you know, great utopia that was promised.

Yeah, I will admit, I think this is a great point and I will admit, I mean, in this case and in many cases, I think there is a great element of human-driven Schadenfreude when the AI robots fail. Yeah.

I mean, it just goes to show how difficult these things are. And I think the point that it isn’t a reminder of the pandemic. All of these, I’ve been getting stories about cancel for any reason travel insurance.

I’ve been getting stories that we wrote one about who owns the customers in an OTA or hotel, cancellation policies, rebooking policies, deferred trips. It is really coming back to the pandemic.

And I think it does emphasize this point about, I was in an in-person conference last week. We’re talking about AI and travel and people like, why is it so hard? Why haven’t we built it?

How can we can’t do these things? And one of the analogs was to the retail sector. And in retail, like buying clothes and headphones and microphones and all these little books, whatever, AI adoption has really accelerated in that space.

And we ask ourselves, why can’t this happen in travel?

And then you have a moment like this and it reminds you and you’re like, oh, it is so complicated, so complex, so many stakeholders, so many brands, so many pieces of plumbing and issues and actual physical safety.

5:30

Chatbots vs Humans

And you say, oh, yeah, I guess that’s why the robots haven’t quite, I mean, they probably will eventually, but that’s why the robots have been, it’s been a hard hill for the robots to take, I guess. Yeah. That’s part of it.

I mean, you can only imagine.

I mean, it’s hard enough for the robots at this time to handle a relatively simple query, you know? Yeah. And then when your query is, there is a drone that has exploded over my house, where I’m going, the airport that I’m going to do.

Parking lot of my hotel.

Yeah.

What should I do now, right? You can obviously see that-

That’s a great question, Sarah. Thanks for asking. You’re right to be concerned.

Yeah, exactly.

Would you like to, A, have me text you a link so you can chat with one of our, it’s like, no, I just want to talk to a person.

Well, I will say this. We are enjoying our moment of schadenfreude against the robots, but I do think that anyone who was really an advocate of AI for customer service would tell you, this was not the AI use case.

They would say, hey, when Seth Borko in New York City calls to rebook his flight to Florida, can the AI please handle that so that I can put my actual human agent on the person who just got trapped in an airport in Dubai?

I think that is probably if we’re being kinder to these customer service plans, that is hopefully, well, maybe it’s not what they’re actually doing, but that’s what we would hope they’re doing, is they’re taking idiots like myself and giving them AI

and then taking the people who just had a drone bomb their airport, and hopefully, putting them on the phone with a real person who can actually help and rebook and get things done. Prioritizing the higher touch customer service recoveries and needs

by diverting the lower touch stuff to AI. That is the use case, and I’m sure that’s some of the did actually happen during this crisis, but it must have been frustrating to type into your OTA and get a chat bot, or even into your brand.

We won’t blame the OTAs. Type into your anything and get a chat bot back when the world’s on quite literal fire sometimes. Yeah.

I’ve been loving how we’ve covered it. I think this shows the power of Skift to making that connection between, she’s just not the pandemic, but we’re back to something like it. Having those multiple angles, again, AI, airline fares, jet fuel.

8:23

Shutdown Hits TSA

I love it. Skift really comes together in a crisis. I love it.

It’s always stressful. It doesn’t help us, but it’s great. I think it’s great for our readers and our listeners.

You know what has gotten lost in all of this, or maybe not?

I guess it depends upon if you have traveled through an American airport in the last couple of weeks, is that the US government is partially shut down. Still, that is going on in the midst of all of this.

I feel like I’ve been totally lost in this story, Sarah. Can you catch me up? What has happened here?

Because the government is obviously, it’s not like one of the big shutdowns. It’s just a partial shutdown, but the TSA is not working, but they are working. What’s happening there?

It’s really confusing.

There was some partial funding that went through. Honestly, we joke about it, but when there are these other things going on, I saw a tweet the other day that was two journalists talking to one another.

That was like, my brain isn’t meant to cover so many story threads at one time. And there are just so many things happening right now that any one of these things would be major news in a regular news cycle.

But the fact that the government shutdown, partial government shutdown is still going on is just going on. It’s like nobody’s even really talking about it all that much anymore. It’s just business as usual, just partially shut down.

But the biggest thing that for our space, for the travel space really has been a lot of this TSA end lines. So and we’ve said this, we’ve said this many, many times before. When government shutdowns end, it is usually because of pain at the airport.

But like this time, it seems to be a little bit different because the pain is at the airport. Like it is there already.

And I mean, I did read today that they’ve said that some airports actually might have to shut down, like entire airports might just have to close. Yeah, and it’s because they just don’t have the TSA staff.

Now, TSA is supposed to come to work because they are essential employees and they will get paid when the shutdown is over, but they are not getting paychecks while they will get back pay.

Would you show up to work if you weren’t getting a paycheck, Sarah?

You know, the honest answer to that is yes for a little while.

Yeah.

It is probably what it would be, but there would come a time, there would be a point where I was just like, I don’t know, like I need money.

11:26

Donations for Agents

I got to pay the rent. You got to buy food. Like, am I going to start taking money out of my 401k?

Like, you know, I don’t know.

What if I set up a GoFundMe for you, Sarah? Would that help you stay on the job?

An excellent point, Seth.

As somebody who has covered dis and misinformation for a lot of my career, when I saw the tweet from the Denver International Airport looking for donations for their TSA agents, my initial thought truly was, this is not real.

Yeah.

Like this cannot be, this cannot be real.

But what did the tweet say? It’s like, emergency donations needed.

Let me just, let me find it. Yeah.

Yeah, support the dedicated TSA employees by donating 10 and $20 grocery store and gas gift cards. However, oddly enough, visa gift cards cannot be accepted.

What’s the government have against visa?

I don’t know, but like, what? Does this technically, is this technically bribery? Does this violate some sort of, like I didn’t think you were allowed to tip your government employees.

If I go and I pay someone at the DMV or the TSA, isn’t it kind of a corruption thing?

I mean, I think we’re way past that Seth. I think we are way into like some sort of la la land of like, you know, the rules that would normally apply, do not apply to our right now anymore. Anymore.

And so now like, they’re now like, this is a very specific New York City reference, but they’re like, yeah, they’re like, like Katz’s, Katz’s deli guys, you got to tip your, your roast beef, your, your, you got to tip, tip your corned beef slicers.

Yeah, I mean, any major D really, it’s like walking to a restaurant. If you want good service, you got to, you got to tip them.

So I don’t know, man. I, the thing, so the thing that is going on, which we talked about a lot or the thing that I think is going on with this shutdown.

And it’s funny because normally I would be incredibly read up on this and I would know exactly but there’s been too many, too many other things going on. So like I like kind of like in passing.

I mean, this is still going on because of what happened in Minnesota.

Yeah, it’s because as we said, because Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, is a part of Department of Homeland Security as is the TSA.

And so the two political parties have agreed to reopen the government, but Department of Homeland Security is just too much of a hot potato to let’s move on.

And so, you know, nobody is really willing to budge on it right now. Like there are no compromise discussions.

14:22

Newark Airport Tangent

They are not being held. They just, or if they are, they just end.

So airlines are facing potentially a 40% fuel hike and a shutdown of some of their major hubs is what I’m hearing, plus passengers who are terrified, including myself, by the way. I’m flying tonight. So if we need an air-lock, here I am.

Newark.

Wait, Newark?

Newark.

I’m a Newark. Great honor.

I’m a Newark.

Yeah.

Yeah, I’m a Newark flyer. We’ll let our regular listeners in on that. Almost always.

Yeah.

Why?

Yeah.

Are you United?

Loyalty?

Yeah. I fly United. I fly United and also I’m on the west side of Manhattan.

So I’m right by Penn Station. So I take. Yeah, okay.

This is a very New York specific topic, but I actually think there’s better mass transit by the New Jersey transit from Penn Station to Newark Airport than there is to any actual New York City airport.

I mean, you can’t even take a subway to LaGuardia, which is a perennial complaint.

Oh, yeah, no. And again, in the New York City conversations, I live near downtown Brooklyn, and it is, you would think, because the airports are very close to me in miles, that it would be easy to get to any of them.

Dear listener or watcher, you would be mistaken.

You would be mistaken. Yeah, the last time I took an Uber home from JFK, which was when I went to Berlin, I believe it cost Skift, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry, Skift.

$140.

Oh.

$140. It was the most I’ve ever seen, and it took an hour and 15 minutes.

My flight to DC was less than the actual flight.

It’s like 12 miles away.

The actual flight to DC was less than that.

I know.

Hopefully, Aamet Khan, our CFO, is not a listener of this podcast. Yeah. This is a trap.

Aamet, if you’re listening, we want to hear your feedback on this expense report, and if you’re not, then it’s game on.

Yeah.

16:32

Latin America Resilience

The airlines and the airports are in a bit of a tough way, but there is one group or region that is a little bit different. Tell us about that, Seth.

Latin America. I think it’s interesting. We get asked all the time on the Skift Research Team for Skift Research on Latin America, and I have to admit that it’s not something we always look into.

We do a lot of business in the Middle East, in North America, in Europe, we even have business in Canada. We are trying to do more business and more research in Latin America.

But it’s kind of its own, I don’t want to call it its own little world, but it’s interesting.

If you could think of a region that is as disconnected from the Gulf and that connectivity issue as you could, Latin America would be at all of those flights that are going through Middle East airspace, the Europe to Asia corridor, all of the impacts

Tan, warm.

Tan, yeah.

It’s still below freezing here in New York.

Yeah. This is despite the fact that it’s not like Latin America hasn’t had its share of melees just recently. The cartel extravaganza in Mexico that saw major, major chaos and rioting all throughout Mexico and closed some massive tourism areas.

And then of course, the US invasion. Yeah. I don’t know.

What are we going to call it? Of Venezuela. I don’t know.

What do we call that?

targeted regime change, precision regime change, sparkling regime change.

You know, he’s in a cell right near where I get, you know, my like $18 salad.

We’re talking about Venezuela’s former leader, Maduro, Nicolas Maduro.

Yeah, Maduro.

Well, I think, I guess, I worry I was being too flippant and I don’t want to insult our listeners or reader in Latin America. This is a major travel corridor. It’s one that I just think gets overlooked.

It’s this north-south, South America to North America corridor. We talk about the transatlantic. We talk about the Europe to Asia.

We even talked about the rise in Africa corridor and in all those contexts, Latin America, both the regional Latin America corridor and the actual north-south Latin America to North America corridor.

It’s one of the most important travel corridors in the world. It’s a growing market and although it has its challenges and it is certainly nowhere in the world is immune from geopolitics, it’s certainly not immune.

I think it’s actually weathered these storms surprisingly well. The Mexico thing, the cartel thing already feels like old news.

19:33

New Traveler Survey

It’s not, but it feels like it was. The Maduro thing compared to the regime change or whatever this is in Iran, was a stunning success with limited impact. Same thing with the Cuba thing, with the coming Cuba thing.

But look, the point is, this is our first major piece of consumer research looking at Latin American travelers.

We did a survey in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, which are basically three of the largest economies and population centers throughout the region. It covers broader Latin America.

Mexico is technically a part of North America as, not even technically, is a part of North America as, so it’s not just a South America study. We’re trying to capture it all. Really interesting findings.

They are just as eager, if not more eager to travel than many other parts of the world. They are looking to spend more, on average 8% more next year. That’s how much they want their travel budgets to increase with.

20:27

Top Destinations Quiz

It is just like with every other part of the world, travel is the top discretionary purchase. Where do they want to go? Sarah, this is actually an interesting question.

It ties into some of these other conversations. We asked them, just list out your top destinations, international destinations, not the best. Where would you love to go?

What do you think the top answer is in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico?

I’m going to go with the United States of America.

We got a winner. We got a winner. It is the United States.

20:59

Politics vs Travel Demand

That’s correct. Brazil, top destination, United States. Mexico, top destination, United States.

Argentina, top destination was… Oh, I love that sound effect. I love that.

Argentina, it was Brazil with United States in second place. So this is quite interesting. We actually find that the United States remains a really popular destination.

And with all the talk about politics, border issues, visa, we were talking about ICE earlier on the show.

Yeah.

You would think that that would not be the case. We certainly do see some hesitance. I mean, it’s not nothing, right?

We see, let me pull up the number. Forty percent of Latin American travelers said that visa and border policies had not influenced their decision.

So does that mean 60 percent it had?

Some said that they were never even considered in the United States. So there’s some chunk that says it was never an option. And another chunk says it influenced me, but maybe I’m going to postpone it or maybe I’m going to…

Very few said that they were canceling outright. Some said they were going to postpone. A majority said it didn’t affect them, and some other piece said that they hadn’t considered the United States in the first place.

So, it’s on the mind.

22:16

Affordability Takes Over

And then like the Germans, it’s like, no, I’m not coming.

Well, yeah, the Germans are just like, nine, absolutely not.

Yeah, exactly. The Latin Americans are more open. What’s interesting is that actually we found in our survey work that the bigger piece of friction was the cost.

And so, you know, we’ve talked about this on Skift. We reported on it on Skift. We’ve talked about it on the podcast.

Affordability, we were talking about, I think, on the last episode. This affordability piece, it’s actually quite interesting how this surfaces here. As you think, what is the number one political issue?

Is it, and it’s all these things, but all these things in many ways are downstream of affordability. And we talked about how affordability is this winner.

And increasingly, even in Latin American travelers, many of whom tell us, actually, I am more worried about the cost of traveling to the United States than about how to actually cross the border into the United States.

23:05

Broadway Sticker Shock

I mean, legally, as a tourist, cross the border into the United States.

Yeah. My niece and my sister are coming into town and have never been. My niece, who’s 11, has never been to New York City.

So we’re going to do a bunch of the touristy things, which because I live here, I don’t normally do. I was looking at how much those things cost. Holy cats.

Have you seen how much a Broadway show costs these days?

I was thinking going to see Six, the show about the Henry VIII’s wives.

Six wives.

Yeah.

I mean, for all five of us to go.

It’s a lot. I mean, five people is probably over a thousand bucks. Yeah.

Absolutely.

So maybe somebody is going to have to just hear about it.

Just play them the soundtrack. You go Spotify. Yeah, exactly.

This is not related to anything, the podcast, travel or operation of Insomniac. I just saw and I really enjoyed it. Oh, is it good?

It was great.

Yeah.

I loved it.

I’ve heard. So what brought you to the theater?

I love theater.

Oh, you just wanted to go?

Oh, that’s awesome. We live in New York City. It’s the greatest city in the world.

You got to take advantage of the cultural, all the theater and the arts and all that stuff.

24:42

How LatAm Plans Trips

Good for you.

See, I only do it when people come into town, and that’s terrible.

Well, anyways, sorry. Back to Latin America, though. Yeah.

A little bit of a sidebar. Back to Latin America. I got another Latin America fact for you about these Latin American travelers.

I think, it’s just a theory, that this market is going to be one of the most important markets to watch. I think that Latin America is going to be one of the most important markets to watch to understand how AI is going to influence travel.

Tell me.

We asked people how they plan their trips. We said, what sources do you use? Sarah, what do you use to plan your trip?

What sources do you use?

Now, at this point, I use a mixture of Claude because Claude is my AI friend of choice. I’m a big Google Flights person and Google.

Yeah, I do love Google Flights.

It’s really just Claude and Google. That’s right.

Do you ever go to the website like marriott.com, delta.com?

Only to book once I have found what I am looking for. I never go to browse there, but I always book direct.

So we asked, well, there’s a lot of brand marketers who thank you for that statement by the way. Yeah. I’m here to help, guys.

So we’ve been doing a global series of survey, and we’ve been trying to build a global travel survey platform.

We’ve asked in Middle East, North Africa, in Europe, in United States, and now in Latin America, the sources that travelers use to book their trips.

The majority of people do use official platforms like brand websites as their source, often followed in a close second by Google and other search engines. Latin America, we see that flipped. They use official sites half as much as in other regions.

We see right here 76 percent of travelers in the Middle East said that they had used the official platform, 77 in North America, I think 50 percent in Europe.

In Latin America, just 30 percent, just one-third of travelers said that they used the official platform. Then we look at Google and we see it flips.

Almost 60 percent of Latin American travelers said they used Google or search engine compared to say 30 percent in Europe or 40 percent in North America or the Middle East. So the usages are kind of reversed.

Like we often talk on this podcast about brands, direct book and loyalty and all those challenges. And we were taking it for granted.

27:17

AI Disrupts Search First

Just how well-trained we are as direct bookers. I mean, you just said it yourself, Sarah. Well, of course, that’s not the case in Latin America.

This is much more intermediary heavy, much more third-party heavy, much more search engine and social media heavy than other markets.

And as a result, when I think about what AI is going to disrupt, back to trying to make a full circle moment for this podcast. We talk about what goes wrong in a disaster.

AI doesn’t solve your direct problems, but it probably does disrupt your search patterns and your search flow.

Maybe AI is not ready for that customer service, official brand primetime in the middle of a disaster just yet, but it’s certainly ready for trip planning. And so we have all these conversations all the time.

I’m sure you get stopped all the time and ask this, how will I have to adapt to AI? How will I have to respond to AI?

I think Latin America, we should study Latin America and I’ll bet you what they do will be an early indicator for many other regions because they’re so much more reliant on search, social media, third-party platforms instead of third-party platforms.

So their jump is going to be easier. It’ll be more seamless.

28:26

Buy Now Pay Later and FX

I think it will be easier for AI to disrupt Google and it already has started to, than it will be for AI to disrupt marriott.com.

And because Latin American travelers use Google so much more, the ripple effects of that AI disruption will probably be felt earlier in Latin America. You know, this is a market that’s been early adopters of other interests in tech.

What are those things called where you pay in installments, but they’re not called installments, they’re called, or are they just called installments?

Oh, yeah, like where you get like a loan.

For like four months.

Yeah, something like that. Layaway?

Yeah, that’s what it used to be called, layaway.

I’m dating myself.

Yeah. Buy now, pay later was very, the early adoption curve of buy now, pay later was in Latin America. They were the first adopters because affordability is such a big issue.

And also the economies are so much more, should we say, volatile in Latin America. Argentina in particular has had major inflation issues.

29:25

Crypto and Inflation Mindset

Yeah.

So that customer base felt the affordability stuff first.

They went into buy now, pay later first. They are more third-party dependent than others. This could be a really interesting experimental market to watch.

In your research, did you run into any conversations about crypto?

Did that come up at all? Latin America was not first per se, but on a real global national sovereign level, they were the first to adopt. I don’t even know the status of those.

El Salvador has it as its official.

Exactly.

Bukele has been.

I think we do. I mean, we know that this is a region where inflation matters. More so than almost any other region in the world.

It shows up very clearly in our research that this is a region incredibly fixated on exchange rates and ethics. Most other regions don’t have, like the US, we just don’t have that level of sophistication. And in Europe, common currency is the euro.

It’s strong currency, same with the United States. And China, Asia, this is a market that pays attention to currency, to exchange rates. They want to lock in those fluctuations.

And that’s also part of why Buy Now, Pay Later took off. Because you could pay for it now.

You knew, you lock it, basically lock in the exchange rate today, and then you finance it and figure out how to pay for it over the next couple of months, rather than having to say, my next installment is due in four months and who knows what it will

cost in my local currency then. cost in my local currency then.

31:01

Government Shutdown Bet

And I think that sort of mentality is what led to Latam being such an early adopter of crypto, because they’re more so than almost any other region. They are very, very focused on foreign exchange and inflation.

So I lost the coffee bet this week with no end in sight to the Iranian conflict. Do we have another bet?

Do you want to bet on the government reopening?

Sure. You pick a date this time.

Well, I am flying out. I’m flying to London tonight. Okay.

I probably shouldn’t give my days travel days to publicly. I don’t know. But I’m flying back next week.

You want to bet? I want to hope against hope and bet against hope that the government is reopening my global entry when I get back next week. It’s back open.

So should we bet for? You’ll take that one?

I’ll take that one, Seth.

Okay. That’s an easy one. That’s an easy one?

It will not be open by the time you return.

I think it’s just going to be closed for a while.

Hasn’t it already been a month?

Yes. It’s been a while.

How much longer can it go on?

It’s not that nobody cares. It’s just that I think in order to stop these things, you have to have this public outrage, which I don’t know. I think there’s outrage fatigue right now, frankly.

It’s hard to muster outrage these days because there’s so much of it to go around.

Well, it’s hard to muster outrage at the abstract stuff happening out there. It’s a lot easier to muster outrage at your hour-and-a-half weight when it affects you personally.

33:11

Winners Losers and Wrap

So that’s why, again, I think… Well, all right, I’m planning on losing this bet, but I want to make it anyways. Wishful thinking for an easy, easy reentry into the United States.

All right, I’ll take that.

So last week, we also talked about our winners and losers, and I had picked Sinners to win Best Picture at the Oscars. It did not. It lost.

Best Actor?

Best Actor counts for something.

Yes, but it won a lot. And Best Supporting Actress went to the phenomenal actress who played, I can’t even really say it. I don’t know what her name actually was, but I don’t want no spoilers, in Weapons.

So as a horror movie fan, the fact that the podium was just full of horror movie genre, as weird as they get movies, I was very, very pleased.

Absolutely.

So my winners were horror movie fans like me, because hopefully that means that many, many more of them will get made.

We need something other than superhero movies, so I’ll take horror. I’ll take so much.

Yeah. I mean, and anything with Michael B. Jordan, and it would be fine.

Thank you.

Please and thank you. Please and thank you, Hollywood. One movie, please.

Yeah.

I don’t know. For my loser of the week, Seth, you already talked about it, but it would be the American Flyer.

Which is me this week. Exactly.

That would be you. Anybody else spring to mind?

For losers this week, are you following the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? There’s a big loser. We’ve got some losers there.

Never mind.

Seth, I like Prestige Horror.

Yeah.

Apparently, you like Reality TV. So no, I’m not following that. That is insulting.

All right.

Forget I said it. I forget. Let’s cut that, please.

No, I think I have a bit of a new shine on you, Seth Borko.

I know.

Well, we got to have our guilty pleasures, huh? Yeah. Oh, I think that’s right.

I think flyers everywhere are truly.

Truly.

I mean, even airlines. I mean, like I was saying earlier, like this is a perfect storm.

If we see a demand drop off because of fear and TSA and airport shutdowns and infrastructure laws paired with oil prices and uncertainty, I mean, it’s not just flyers.

It’s those who are flying and those who are doing the flying, and those who are being flown and those who are flying themselves are all really stuck in this mess that’s sadly outside of their making and their control.

It’ll be really interesting to hear the CEOs of the airlines talk on the next starting cycle to see what they say.

We already have a story, right? United Airlines Scott Kirby, I think, said, we think we can win this thing. We think we’re going to come out like best of a bad bunch sort of comment, but let’s see at come earnings what he really, what happens then.

Exactly right.

All right, I think that’s it for this week. Thank you everybody for tuning in. We will see you next week when Seth is back and the government shutdown is over.

That’s right.

And the war is over, government shutdown, war and it’s all done. Wait till next week.

And it’ll be spring and we all can go outside again and all will be well.

All will be well. We’ll have more horror movies, prestige horror movies. See you everyone.

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