Amtrak preparing to cut up to 20 percent of staff

Amtrak reportedly plans to cut its workforce by about one-fifth in the next fiscal year after the coronavirus pandemic reduced ridership and ticket revenue by about 95 percent.

Amtrak plans to implement the cuts by October when the rail service’s 2021 fiscal year begins. It employs over 18,000 people nationwide.

The company has required passengers to wear masks since early May, with exemptions for passengers eating in designated areas or those sitting alone or with a travel companion in their own pair of seats. Other measures the train operator has taken include capping bookings at 50 percent capacity, cashless transactions at stations and on trains, and promoting physical distancing.

CEO Bill Flynn said the company projects ridership will only return to about 50 percent of pre-pandemic levels in 2021. “This may sound easy, but the climb back will be hard,” Flynn said in an internal memo first obtained by the Wall Street Journal Tuesday. In the memo, he said even achieving that 50 percent rebound will require “substantial growth over the next 16 months, and it will have to be achieved against a backdrop of stunning unemployment, socio-economic dislocation and a potential recession,” he wrote.

https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/499632-amtrak-preparing-to-cut-up-to-20-percent-of-staff-report