“This will likely necessitate temporary frequency reductions, primarily for our long-distance services,” Gardner said of the worker shortage.
Gardner said the impact would be felt mostly on long-distance services because of the small crews at stops along these multi-day routes.
“At some of these crew bases across our network, we have a relatively high percentage of unvaccinated employees,” Gardner said.
Amtrak expects to share by next week what services are being reduced. Amtrak plans to return all routes to regular service levels as soon as it has sufficient employees.
Gardner said the pandemic has had a silver lining. In recent months, 30% of passengers were making their first trip on Amtrak, which he said was double the norm before Covid. Amtrak ridership has averaged about 65%-70% of pre-pandemic levels before Thanksgiving of this year. At the Thanksgiving holiday, ridership was 78% of what it was before the pandemic, Gardner said.