As U.S. government leaders consider funding travel industry relief packages, ground transportation executives are imploring them not to be left out.
EmpireCLS' revenues during the past three weeks have plummeted from about 20 percent below normal to about 90 percent below normal this week, CEO David Seelinger said. The company has laid off the majority of employees outside of a skeleton crew, is moving offices to people's residences and is searching for places to park its vehicles.
Robert Alexander, president of the National Limousine Association, said that is happening across the industry, with all suppliers going through multiple layers of furloughs and terminations.
"The majority of this industry is made up of small and midsize operators, and they're not going to be able to last for long," Seelinger said. "These are not gig-economy people. Our chauffeurs are employees, and we're struggling just like the airlines and the hotels are."
The NLA along with six of the other largest national ground transportation industry associations formed a coalition to request from the U.S. government $12 billion in cash grants to keep fleet operators in business. The group is asking for several other relief measures, including vehicle loan deferment, liability insurance premium suspension for vehicles pulled from service and mandated payment by government accounts within five days of billing.
Without those measures, many operators will be "wiped out" by the crisis, Alexander said.
"Las Vegas is dark, but they have public money, and their lights will be on again," he said. "The small operations need this bailout more than anyone."
Global Business Travel Association executive director and COO Scott Solombrino, also a longtime leader in the ground transportation industry, said the organization supports the coalition in its efforts to secure a bailout for the full industry, including taxis, airport shuttles and buses as well as chauffeured transportation suppliers. If there was carnage among those companies, it would be stifling to full travel industry recovery once the crisis begins to ease and business travel and events start to come back, he said.
"We're trying to get them heard and get attention in this very chaotic scenario," Solombrino said. "If they all go out of business, what would a recovery look like in June or July?"
It could leave some secondary and tertiary markets with few to no suppliers, Seelinger said. In addition, it could leave them unable to manage a "cashflow tsunami" should demand return quickly, according to Alexander.
In the meantime, many ground transportation companies are continuing operations and also are requesting a pipeline of access to cleaning products to make sure vehicles are regularly sanitized. The industry is looking to potential new sources of demand, such as helping medical professionals move people and equipment from lab to lab, though none will be enough to move the needle against the major loss of demand, Seelinger said.
"The majority of people we see traveling at this very moment are the real decision makers," he said. "These are the names you see every day in the news, and it's important that those chauffeurs that are with them are protected, too."