E-Travel Links Amtrak As Bookings At Parent Amadeus Drop

Boosted by increased ridership, Amtrak and Waltham, Mass.-based E-Travel today unveiled the previously anticipated direct link between the rail service and the E-Traveler corporate self-booking system.

Amtrak has reported an increase in ridership since Sept. 11 of about 12 percent nationally and 40 percent on the northeast Acela Express. "Acela is selling out a few times daily," said Amtrak Northeast Corridor spokeswoman Karen Dunn. Rail travel in recent weeks appears to have become a useful alternative to airlines for corporate travelers.

Phillip Morris manager of travel services operations Donna Muhlhausen noted a "dramatic increase" in the company's Amtrak bookings in the past few weeks. Phillip Morris is an E-Travel customer. Still, Dunn said, it may be too soon to track any shift in corporate policy toward rail. "We have reached out to our existing corporate partners, but most corporations are leaving travel choices up to the individual," she said. And in light of new military action, Dunn said, "It's going to be hard to predict what people's travel patterns are going to be."

In a separate announcement, E-Travel's parent company, Madrid-based Amadeus Global Travel Distribution, today outlined the impact of the Sept. 11 events on bookings. Bookings for the third quarter declined 3.6 percent over the same quarter in 2000. Bookings in the United States dropped 45.2 percent between Sept. 11 and Sept. 30, compared with the same period in 2000, and overall bookings in the same period fell 27.5 percent. U.S. bookings during the first week of October were down by 32 percent year over year.