Amtrak Restores Some Acela Service
Amtrak is bringing back into operation more Acela roundtrip trains in the Northeast Corridor following a four-month suspension that began in April. Beginning Aug. 1, the railway operator is adding nine weekday roundtrips between Washington, D.C., and New York and three weekday roundtrips between Boston, New York and Washington. Amtrak last month began reinstating the high-speed express service on a limited basis, when it added three roundtrip trains between New York and Washington and two roundtrip trains between Boston and Washington. Amtrak suspended service between April 15 and July 11 to "accommodate the redesign, manufacture and replacement of brake discs after the discovery of cracks in the rotors' spokes," the railway operator said. Although full Acela service has yet to be reinstated, Amtrak said it would "gradually return to service during the coming months." In the meantime, Metroliner trains are supplementing the still-limited Acela service on routes in the Northeast Corridor.
2005 Hotel Profits To Surge
Following reports of continued profits last month by hotel giants Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Hilton Hotels Corp., PricewaterhouseCoopers in a report released last week forecasting U.S. lodging profits to hit $20.9 billion in this year. Although the projection comes in $1.6 billion shy of record profits in 2000, PwC projected the bar would be reset in 2006, with $25 billion in profits. Strong demand is fueling growth in hotel earnings this year. PwC forecasts occupancy this year to grow 4.2 percent over 2004, to a record 2,847,000 occupied rooms per night.
TSA To Shuffle Nation's Airport Screeners
The U.S. government will reallocate its 45,000 passenger and baggage screeners among some of the nation's airports to more accurately reflect changing commercial air traffic patterns, according to a report the Transportation Security Administration issued late last week. "There are some airports that we believe are overstaffed and some we believe are understaffed," Tom Blank, acting deputy administrator of TSA, told the House Homeland Security subcommittee on economic security, infrastructure protection and cyber security. While some modifications to screener workforces will be slight, such as the removal of six screeners from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, other airports will be harder hit. The TSA report said Portland International Airport in Oregon will lose 168 passenger and baggage screeners, roughly one-third of its 509 screeners. New York's Kennedy International Airport will lose nearly 10 percent, or 162, of its 1,844 screeners, while the number of screeners at New York's LaGuardia Airport will increase 10 percent, with 76 more screeners. McCarran Airport in Las Vegas and Los Angeles International Airport also will increase their staffing, by 247 and 120 screeners, respectively.
Airlines Bemoan Extra Daylight-Saving Time
The U.S. Congress wants to let the sun shine in for an extra month each year, but U.S. airlines said it would wreak havoc with international schedules and their bottom line. The Air Transport Association, the lobbying group for U.S. carriers, last month lodged strong protests to a provision in soon-to-be-enacted energy legislation that would extend daylight-saving time by four weeks. ATA said an extra month of daylight-saving time would compound challenges U.S. airlines already face with a one-week differential between the beginning of U.S. and European daylight-saving time periods. U.S., European and Asian airlines have agreements to accommodate the one-week differential that could be strained were it in place for a longer period of time and cost U.S. airlines $75 million annually, the group said.