YouSaid · the spoken record

Steven Udvar-Hazy

lines on the record: 88
first: 2023-09-04
most recent: 2023-09-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yes, yes, and then a few months later a company called Hughes Air West was trying to sell a 727. And I found an airline in Brazil called Cruzero. And on that deal, I made $45,000. I never even went to Brazil, they came up to California. So, anyway, I thought I was smarter than I really was because I was dumb.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“50 grand. Today, I don't know what's half a million dollars. I don't know what it is. I was still in college. I was a junior.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I still have models of the plane before and after. Anyway, Air New Zealand and I make a deal. They're going to pay a 5% commission.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, anyway, we get to Auckland, the guy from Alaska, Bob Refalls in love with the plane. It's clean. It looks like new. He says, I'm interested, but I also need a spare engine and a spare propeller and some other stuff. So they said, fine, $1,050,000 for the whole Lock stock”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So then I found an airline in Alaska called Revolution Airways. So what I arranged is that I got free tickets again for him, the airline owner in Alaska and myself, to go down to Auckland, New Zealand. Inspect this plane and potentially buy it. So we get to New Zealand. I've never been there before. These guys have a heart attack when they see me because I was like 21.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So here's what happened. I got a letter from Air New Zealand saying that they plan to sell a Lockheed Electra, which is a four-engine turboprop, and they want to sell that aircraft because they wanted to order an additional DC8 from Douglas. So they said, if you're interested in this Electra, please let us know”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, 66. They said you can come as often as you want, either from New York or Chicago. We'll give you a ticket. I mean, because the plane was only half full anyway, so it was no big deal. And you work on this fleet plan, we send you four thousand dollars. Next day they wrote me a check in US dollars. They said, when you go home, you can cash the check. So I worked on their fleet plan. And they pretty much followed it.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, one of them said, You know more about our airline than we do. So I really did my homework. I felt if I didn't do my homework and knew my stuff, this would be a bust. So they immediately hired me that afternoon and said we'll pay you four thousand dollars that was a lot of money then.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I went to lunch with them for like two hours And they were pretty, I would have to say they were pretty impressed. Because...”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They had Fokker F27s. They had three DC4 carvears that were converted to be able to fly cards across the Irish channel. It was a hodgepodge fleet of airplanes, which I thought was crazy, and they were losing a lot of money. So I sent them an outline. They said, okay, this sounds really creative. And they sent me a ticket. And they said, come over”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was called Airlines Systems Research Consultants. How do you like that? ASRC. Grayline Systems Research Consultants. And I had letterhead made up and everything else. And I took out one of those offices, which is like a PO box on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. And so this looked like a legitimate consulting firm. So Erlingus, I sent them an outline of what I was thinking and they said, oh, this is actually very interesting.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, yes. And get their schedule. And then do the research and then send them telegrams without saying. Revealing how old I am or anything else”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a similar sort of vision about an airline in Ireland called Erlingus. And it wasn't about their schedule. It was the hotgepodge fleet that they had of different airplanes. And I thought I could come up with a streamlined fleet. And I wrote to them and sent them telegrams and stuff like that. Writing to them.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My wife says, I'm crazy that I remember the serial numbers of airplanes. We bought in 1977. And I say to her, well, each plane is like a child to me. So I remember them very distinctly.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just about this time that I'm translating my passion to some kind of an inquisition into the knowledge of airlines, that's when the jet age began.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, at least four out of the five. And Ami was like, arrive in Reading, California at 8.13 in the morning and depart at 8.28. That's not something any crazy person would know. It was an exact copy, not 100%, but at least 80% of my schedule was. Adopted by the airline so That to me was a turning experience, even though there was no monetary benefit. I realized that maybe I could add some value to this industry, that I thought aviation was a growth industry, that I felt that aviation, with the jet age, remember in October 1958, Pan Am had its first flight on a 707 from New York to London. And then about half a year later, the Douglas DC-8 took the skies with, I think it was Delta United National with the first three airlines.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Were like maybe four inches by eight inches. Okay. and you'd fold them out. Anyway, I go to LAX three or four months later. I don't know exactly when. I pick up their schedule. I didn't pay any attention to it. I get home, didn't do anything. That weekend, I look at the stupid schedule, and you won't believe it. 80% of the schedule is what I sent them.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and here's the schedule, I think, is optimized. And I think the airline would be much better operating this type of a schedule than what you have now, the status quo. And he wrote me back a very nice letter saying we don't need consultants. Thank you, but we're not really interested in pursuing this. So it was a real slam because I thought I'd put all this work in dozens of hours. And this guy thinks I'm an idiot. So about three or four months later, I'm at LAX collecting schedules.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I analyze their schedule to run blue in the face, and they had about 20 airplanes. And I said, with 15 airplanes, I could put together a better schedule than what their schedule was. So I actually put together almost like a spreadsheet. Of a new schedule saying, you know, this flight leaves San Diego at 7.05, it flies to LAX, then it goes here, Bakersfield, or Fresno. I put the schedule together, the turnaround times were shorter, and I sent it to this president of the airline called Harry White in San Francisco at the airport. And I said, look, I'm an airline consultant. I didn't tell him how old I was.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd go to Santa Monica, Burbank. I'd go to LAX all the time. I'd collect all the timetables. In those days, you know, we have no electronic access to schedule. So I would go to all the terminals that LAX, collect all the timetables. I would go to the maintenance area where there were Continental Airlines and Flying Tiger on the west end of LAX. And I would talk my way in there, again, saying I'm doing a term paper, I'm doing something for school. And I just basically pushed my way in. So I was still in high school and there was a small airline based in San Francisco called Pacific Airlines We were flying these 40 seat small planes. So I became obsessed with this airline because I, in my 16-year-old mind, I thought I could run this airline better than the guys that were running it.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My dad sort of felt, look, he needs to pursue whatever his passion is. And my mother said, why can't you be like a normal person and become a doctor or an engineer? And that made no sense to me at all. And my dad said, let him be a rebel. He's going to be okay. And of course, I didn't tell my parents everything I was doing vis- ⁇-vis aviation because they felt that was taking away from my academics.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. In fact, I had a girlfriend, her name was Erica, and sometimes I would dream that I'm flying a DC-7. And she's waiting for me at the airport somewhere up in New England. And I'm actually this pilot of this DC7, and I would taxi in in front of the terminal with the window open, the cockpit window open and my arm hanging out. And this young lady would be waiting for me. This is the kind of stuff I would dream about, which is totally oddball and different. But it was all part of this fascination about aviation.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Out there for like two or three hours, then I would go back home and I would never tell anyone I went to the airport. And I was totally obsessed with the different airlines and airplanes. And then I would go to the library and dig into it some more. Like if I saw a certain kind of airplane. Go to a library and try to get more information on it. So this became almost like Or a passionate obsession, let's call it. When I started going to school in America, there was this void in my life because I wasn't into baseball or basketball or American football. Whereas a lot of my friends were doing that. So the aviation almost filled that vacuum.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, in the afternoon I would work at my aunt's office, and then I would tell my parents that I'm going to the library to study. And instead of going to the library or going to my aunt's office, I would take the subway out to Queens, and the station was, I don't know, about a mile away from Bagordia. And at that time, there was no security. talk to the ticket agents, I talked to the station managers, I'd go to the American Airlines Hangar, which was just left of the terminal. A couple of times I talked my way into the control tower saying that I was doing a term paper for school, for science class. And so that's what I would do. And I had a little notebook where I would write in what airline was flying, what kind of plane, and where it was going, almost like a little memo of airport activity.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was like a 1957 Buick. She drove us into Manhattan. And then once we get into Manhattan, I see all kinds of people that look completely different than where I grew up. There was all kinds of interesting kaleidoscope of people that I'd never seen before as a 12-year-old. So it was kind of a culture shock. I didn't speak the language. I knew about ten words. So it was kind of a shock for a child.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, but when we landed at that time, it was called Idlewild Airport, which is now Joanna F. Kennedy Airport. And they were friendly. The officials stamped your paperwork, everything else. And my aunt was waiting for us. She had a nice Buick car, which I'd never seen before.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And maybe, you know, it could have been 10 years in prison or work camp or whatever. But look, this is the quest for freedom that millions of people... Experienced coming out of Eastern Europe. And I wish more young people today in America and in Europe would understand that the socialism, communism, Marxism was not a friendly, desirable place to grow up as a child. So that was really a turning moment when that plane took off and headed north toward Denmark. We knew we made it. And so that was really a very emotional experience for me. At 12 and a half year old.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the way to the airport, my mom kept telling me, do not acknowledge your brother, do not acknowledge your dad, just totally ignore them.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were incompetent and probably have drunk, and they were more interested in the soccer game that was going to take place later that day. And they just, you know, I mean, we were lucky. God was watching over us.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, I was looking forward to flying. They were worried about being detained and I was like all excited to fly in this Douglas DC-6. Fly that four engine propeller plane. Anywhere”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, we kind of went through separate. In those days, there was no TSA type screening. We went through, and I remember my mother told me when we got dressed in the morning, she says, wear three layers of shirts because we're only going to have one bag for each of us. And she said, look, your name is Ishtan Kutsura, which is my mother's maiden name, and she explained, look, that's who I are. And we're going to act like we don't even know each other when we're at the airport.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we kept going for maybe another half hour or so. And I could already see the opening in the barbed wire fence because other people must have gotten out there. And this gentleman was just increasingly worried. Just made a decision kind of at the last moment. He said, Look, this is now, we're risking our lives. One of us is going to get blown up. So my parents were very scared that something might happen. And we turned back.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So my father lined up a guide on the Austrian border. Austria was the only country that was a non communist country with a border. We took a train out to the west. Maybe I don't remember exactly which station we got off, but my guess it was about 10 to 15 miles from the border. And then my dad hired this gentleman. Remember had these big boots to get through the mud, and then he had a horse with a wagon, and he took us, my guess is maybe a couple of kilometers from the border, and we start walking. And as we kept walking toward the border, it kept snowing harder and harder. And I remember this guide became more like agitated. He became more and more concerned because there were minefields. Both sides of the barbed wire”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no. My father refused to join the Communist Party. Annette did not enable him to progress in his activities because if you're not a member of the party, you're not part of the elite. And so therefore, we lost all of our possessions. My parents had to make do with whatever they could earn. And the Russian army came in and basically retook complete power.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I was six years old, my father took me to an airshow, which was completely mesmerizing for me as a six-year-old. And there was civilian aircraft, aerobatic aircraft, military aircraft flying and on display. And living in a communist totalitarian Marxist country I found that airplanes and aviation was sort of a fascinating. Dream almost. Be able to ultimately get away from this communist, Marxist country that I was living in.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After the Soviet Union invaded the country in 1956, his parents managed to get him and his brother out. As a teenager, Steve would go to airports around Los Angeles and watch planes take off and land. He'd memorize schedules and timetables, and by the time he got to college at UCLA, he was offering his services as a consultant to airlines. This was the dawn of the jet age, and Steve soon realized that the gold wasn't in the gold mines, but rather it was in selling the pickaxes and shovels. And in his case, owning the planes and charging the airlines to use them. How he made his money is a story of an obsession, an obsession with airplanes that started from an early age.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Running an airline is a miserable thing. It's 24-7 and everything goes wrong. And I said, the guy that was making money off this project is the guy in Arizona.”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, one of my favorite parts of traveling is getting a feel for a neighborhood, the way locals do. A few summers ago, I was in Rome and stayed in an apartment I booked on Airbnb. It was tucked in a quiet neighborhood just outside the Roman forum. Every morning I'd walk to the corner cafe, grab an espresso, and just watch the world go by outside. I even managed to chat with the owner about the neighborhood he lived in for nearly forty years. And he got me thinking about my own neighborhood. There are incredible hiking trails and great restaurants and, of course, the beach. And when I'm traveling this summer, listing my own place on Airbnb could be a really smart way to let someone else experience the area the way I do, like a local. Listing your home on Airbnb while you're traveling is a great way to make some extra money. You could put the money toward your next trip. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much”
2023-09-04 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Air Lease Corporation: Steven Udvar-Hazy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT