Why does Amtrak pay for hotel stays when the delay is not their fault?

[ToniCounter]

Why does Amtrak pay for hotel stays and meals when the delay is not their fault? For example, passengers who get stranded in Chicago due to late incoming train. (weather, track disruption, yielding/waiting for freight trains)

Airlines don't pay a penny when the delay is caused by weather or ATC issues.

 

[MrFSS]

Why does Amtrak pay for hotel stays and meals when the delay is not their fault? For example, passengers who get stranded in Chicago due to late incoming train. (weather, track disruption, yielding/waiting for freight trains)

Airlines don't pay a penny when the delay is caused by weather or ATC issues.

In my working days, years ago, when I traveled by air a lot, I was put up in hotels many, many times by the airline even when it wasn't their fault. I had them buy me meals, rent me a car to drive to the final destination. Last major trip my wife and I took right before retirement was to Hawaii. Had two flights cancelled and they put us up in a Marriott and fed us first class food and put us in first class the next flight!

Never say never!

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

FAULT is not an appropriate term to use in this situation. A passenger purchases a "passage" from an origination point to a destination point. Does not matter the mode of transport whether air, train, bus or other. It is the responsibility of the "company" who contracted with the passenger to accomplish the "passage" from origination to destination. Whether the fault is weather, mechanical, etc, including freight congestion, track work detours, etc. "company" contracted to provide the "passage". Good business sense dictates that Amtrak, airlines, etc pay for extra expenses when connections or not met, etc.

 

[BCL]

Why does Amtrak pay for hotel stays and meals when the delay is not their fault? For example, passengers who get stranded in Chicago due to late incoming train. (weather, track disruption, yielding/waiting for freight trains)

Airlines don't pay a penny when the delay is caused by weather or ATC issues.

In my working days, years ago, when I traveled by air a lot, I was put up in hotels many, many times by the airline even when it wasn't their fault. I had them buy me meals, rent me a car to drive to the final destination. Last major trip my wife and I took right before retirement was to Hawaii. Had two flights cancelled and they put us up in a Marriott and fed us first class food and put us in first class the next flight!

Never say never!

Sure. If it's an overbooking situation or a mechanical problem, the airlines often consider it their issue. I suppose the problem with weather delays is that they tend to affect all airlines, and then there's an issue with hotel room supply. Now I do remember the disastrous weather delay around Christmas 2012. Even though weather wasn't bad where I took off, the equipment is often routed to get there from some other place with horrendous weather. My wife and child's plane was suppose to come from the East Coast and was delayed 6 hours. Mine was maybe a 1 hour delay, but that's probably because of ATC issue with all these flights coming in late and disturbing normal schedules.

I do remember once we were in Hawaii with my in-laws, and they were taking a different flight back than us. So we check up on their flight and it's delayed 5 hours. So for two people they got $20 in meal vouchers. So we all went together and it paid for maybe two pizzas at Kona Brewing.

 

[BCL]

FAULT is not an appropriate term to use in this situation. A passenger purchases a "passage" from an origination point to a destination point. Does not matter the mode of transport whether air, train, bus or other. It is the responsibility of the "company" who contracted with the passenger to accomplish the "passage" from origination to destination. Whether the fault is weather, mechanical, etc, including freight congestion, track work detours, etc. "company" contracted to provide the "passage". Good business sense dictates that Amtrak, airlines, etc pay for extra expenses when connections or not met, etc.

Certainly there's good will, and then there's spending way more money on a hotel than they'll ever get back from the average passenger. If that were the case, then there wouldn't be force majeure language in most contracts of carriage.

 

[PVD]

You are contracted for passage under the terms of service (contract of carriage) of that carrier. Most airlines are not responsible to compensate you in weather or atc situations. Sometimes they do for good will. Remember, some airlines don't have inter-line agreements with other carriers and will not rebook you on another carrier even if their last flight of the day is cancelled. You have to take that into consideration when you decide which airline and flight you book.

 

[Hal]

Certainly there's good will, and then there's spending way more money on a hotel than they'll ever get back from the average passenger. If that were the case, then there wouldn't be force majeure language in most contracts of carriage.

Putting passengers in a hotel costs money but they can't strand them from delayed connecting trains! They don't always put them in hotels. They might put them on a bus and they have also put passengers in a taxi. It depends on their destination. Also they are not usually paying the advertised rate for the hotels. They have standing contracts with hotels for standby rooms at reduced room rates.

 

[the_traveler]

Years ago, I've received many hotels from airlines due to weather delays. A couple of years ago, a friend was returning from Europe on a frequent flyer award flying First Class. His flight from Warsaw to Paris was delayed on takeoff due to fog (weather) and he missed his connecting flight back to Boston. AF paid for a hotel for him and put him on a flight the next day. All coach passengers essentially were told "... the seats are over there ..."!

Good will is one reason that I prefer Amtrak over flying. At least on Amtrak if you miss a connection, you do not have to spend the night sleeping in the seats in the terminal.

 

[Bob Dylan]

I've had many similar expierences with Airlines back in the day ( I was a Million Mile Flyer) and with Amtrak several times!

Amtrak even flew some of us from Oakland to CHI one time ( in First Class!) when the Zephyr was Cancelled for 2 days after putting me up in the Hyatt in Emeryville over night!

They also Upgraded me to a Bedroom on the Lake Shore Ltd to NYP since the Roomettes were Sold Out.

 

[PVD]

Amtrak is a public benefit corporation, not a stockholder benefit corporation. Different reasons to exist, different way of conducting their affairs.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

In my experience the primary factor that determines compensation is the number of impacted passengers. If two people are delayed due to a fault of the airline then you're likely to be treated fairly well. If two hundred people are delayed by fault of the airline then you're likely to receive minimal compensation. If two thousand people are delayed by fault of the airline then chances are nobody is receiving anything on consequence.

 

[PVD]

One of the (few) positive things airlines have done more in recent years is announce ahead of major predicted storms that they would waive change fees for those who wished to move their flights forward or back a few days. this helps reduce the numbers of stranded, and those who they would have to deal with later. Since load factors are so high, with many sold out and even overbooked flights, one bad day can ripple for a week.

 

[Anderson]

As noted, Amtrak doesn't have any points where they're likely to end up with a massive number of passengers piled up too often. Their only main meeting points for LD trains are NYP, CHI, WAS, NOL, LAX, EMY, and PDX (SEA isn't a valid transfer point for scheduling reasons). Of these:
-NOL is a forced overnight in all cases. No pileups to be had there.
-PDX, EMY, LAX, and WAS only have a limited number of LD connections to play with (PDX has Builder-Starlight, EMY has Zephyr-Starlight, LAX has Chief/Sunset-Starlight, and WAS has Cap-Crescent and Cap-Meteor). Moreover, in a bunch of cases Amtrak has fallback options for missed connections (the CA bus/train network covers a lot of possible city pairs for both EMY and LAX).
-NYP has a lot of LD trains...but only one valid connecting pair out of the whole mess (Meteor-LSL). Everything else is an on-your-own connection.
--Additionally, though there are lots of connections in/out of NYP to/from LD trains, Amtrak owns the tracks and has low-load factor late night trains in most directions. If push comes to shove, Amtrak can drag a protect coach or two out and put it on a Regional to cover most of the "local" connections.

So...basically, Amtrak is likely to have to cover more than a small number of pax in one station (Chicago)...and there, I believe Amtrak has arrangements in place to begin with (likely at a pre-arranged rate, which is likely a decent deal for the hotel in question). Even there, the required room count is much better than any of the major airlines might face at O'Hare (you're looking at maybe a few hundred passengers per day for Amtrak versus potentially thousands at O'Hare...I don't think any Amtrak LD train regularly has more than about 500 seats; even if the Builder, Zephyr, and Chief all misconnect, you're never looking at more than a thousand pax piled up...and if you have massive delays in both directions there's a chance that the trains on one side will be delayed enough to mitigate the problem).

There's also the once-daily nature of most of Amtrak. Yes, a few pairs may have a second daily option (e.g. CHI-WAS works via either BUF, PGH, or CIN), but those are the exceptions.As noted, Amtrak doesn't have any points where they're likely to end up with a massive number of passengers piled up too often. Their only main meeting points for LD trains are NYP, CHI, WAS, NOL, LAX, EMY, and PDX (SEA isn't a valid transfer point for scheduling reasons). Of these:
-NOL is a forced overnight in all cases. No pileups to be had there.
-PDX, EMY, LAX, and WAS only have a limited number of LD connections to play with (PDX has Builder-Starlight, EMY has Zephyr-Starlight, LAX has Chief/Sunset-Starlight, and WAS has Cap-Crescent and Cap-Meteor). Moreover, in a bunch of cases Amtrak has fallback options for missed connections (the CA bus/train network covers a lot of possible city pairs for both EMY and LAX).
-NYP has a lot of LD trains...but only one valid connecting pair out of the whole mess (Meteor-LSL). Everything else is an on-your-own connection.
--Additionally, though there are lots of connections in/out of NYP to/from LD trains, Amtrak owns the tracks and has low-load factor late night trains in most directions. If push comes to shove, Amtrak can drag a protect coach or two out and put it on a Regional to cover most of the "local" connections.

So...basically, Amtrak is likely to have to cover more than a small number of pax in one station (Chicago)...and there, I believe Amtrak has arrangements in place to begin with (likely at a pre-arranged rate, which is likely a decent deal for the hotel in question). Even there, the required room count is much better than any of the major airlines might face at O'Hare (you're looking at maybe a few hundred passengers per day for Amtrak versus potentially thousands at O'Hare...I don't think any Amtrak LD train regularly has more than about 500 seats; even if the Builder, Zephyr, and Chief all misconnect, you're never looking at more than a thousand pax piled up...and if you have massive delays in both directions there's a chance that the trains on one side will be delayed enough to mitigate the problem).

There's also the once-daily nature of most of Amtrak. Yes, a few pairs may have a second daily option (e.g. CHI-WAS works via either BUF, PGH, or CIN), but those are the exceptions. So unlike airlines, where these messes are supposed to be the exception (or Spirit, who just doesn't give a rip), with Amtrak they know this will happen with at least some regularity...and I believe Amtrak closes CUS for a few hours at night, while at least in O'Hare the airport remains open, so I think Amtrak might be stuck between keeping Union Station staffed up those nights or finding somewhere to put people.

 

[NorthShore]

...and I believe Amtrak closes CUS for a few hours at night, while at least in O'Hare the airport remains open, so I think Amtrak might be stuck between keeping Union Station staffed up those nights or finding somewhere to put people.

Strictly speaking, the O'Hare terminals are considered "closed" overnight, also.

Purportedly, it is a "safety" policy which dates back to the first Gulf war. Realistically, it is an excuse to sweep the homeless out.

At Union Station, it is essentially the same thing. However, since trains are typically all out of the station by 12:30 or 1 A.M., they can safely say, "Sorry, you can't be here."

Whereas, at the airport there is some sort of activity all night, between late/early arrivals/departures and crews showing up to prep flights, along with businesses prepping for morning rush. So the cops can't entirely shoo everyone away; if you can show that you have good reason to be around they may let you stay. (They will challenge you. I, personally, got balled out for quietly praying in the airport chapel after midnight.) And, in emergency situations/bad weather the airport administration may make accommodations for stranded passengers to sleep on cots.

Amtrak could, of course, take similar steps at the building they own, if they desired. Though, putting people up at hotels is, obviously, preferable for passengers.

 

[xyzzy]

Ironic that I'm reading this thread from a hotel in Tokyo. I landed at Narita this afternoon and was supposed to continue on to Taipei, but a typhoon closed the Taipei airports until tomorrow morning. So, JAL dumped me at Narita. On my own, no hotel reserved, no nothing - and I hold a business-class ticket. To make things worse, all hotels near Narita (there aren't many) are full. Fortunately I have been to Tokyo a zillion times so I just went into the city and got a hotel, but I can see how a passenger who doesn't speak Japanese and has no knowledge of how things work here could be really put at a disadvantage. And the Narita terminals close at night after the last plane leaves... no sleeping in the terminal.

 

[rrdude]

I was on CZ when it derailed in Glenwood Canyon in 1988. Was going to transfer to the Pioneer, and visit family in Oregon. But with the delay of the derailment, it took several hours for the DRGW to get a "work train" to us, made up of every spare caboose they could find. By the time we got to Denver, I took up the offer to fly, and Amtrak paid for my flight to Portland.