Amtrak responds to weekend’s ticketing meltdown

Austin’s Statesman.com has the entire story, which is absolutely worth your attention.

By Rafi Guroian | Monday, August 27, 2007, 04:28 PM

Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero was nice enough to give Cox Newspapers a post-mortem followup to this past weekend’s complete shutdown of Amtrak’s reservations and ticketing systems:

Amtrak expects to identify lost revenue as a result of the system shutdown, but will be looking for a spike in sales toward the beginning of this week from people who are calling back in to book reservations they intended to book over the weekend. That said, Romero suggested that the amount of revenue lost may not have been as substantial compared to what might have happened if the shutdown occurred during peak booking hours.

Here’s the kicker. In many locations Amtrak employees did not properly handle the situation. It certainly may not be their fault. These folks have managers and supervisors whose job it is to train folks for the numerous situations that will arise in the transportation business.

Let’s just consider this a learning opportunity.

Filed under: Amtrak