With travel all but stopped by the coronavirus and federal subsidies going to airlines, transit systems and Amtrak, motor coach operators say they need help, too.
“I haven’t seen a dollar in two months. And I don’t see anything changing in the foreseeable future,” said John Lizak, president of Lizak Bus Service of Warren. “The industry is hurting. If we don’t get bailed out, we are not going to be around. It’s as simple as that.”
Lizak Bus Service, Springfield-based Peter Pan Bus Lines and other Massachusetts companies will join Wednesday in a 1,000-bus rally in Washington sponsored by the American Bus Association and United Motor Coach Association. Lizak said he expects a protest eight miles long.
What bus companies want, according to the trade groups, is $15 billion in federal grants and loan guarantees and modifications to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan and Paycheck Protection programs.
The bus industry is made up of 3,000 companies across America, operating 36,000 motor coaches and transporting nearly 600 million people annually, generating more than $237 billion in transportation, travel and tourism revenue. Collectively, the industry has 100,000 employees — with 90% of those workers laid off during the pandemic, the American Bus Association said.
That includes Peter Pan Bus Lines, which is virtually closed for the first time in its 87-year history, with 95% of its roughly 500 employees not working. Peter Pan is losing revenue in the seven figures each month, chairman and CEO Peter Picknelly said previously.
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Lizak Bus Service is a third-generation family business also more than 80 years old, John Lizak said.
He’s laid off most of his 35-person staff, including eight motor coach drivers. He has five full-size motor coaches, one minibus and a fleet of school buses that have not run since March.
Peter Pan runs charters and scheduled service. Lizak runs charters only. And he said business will be very slow to come back. He’s already refunded money and canceled trips that would have taken place through the fall foliage season.
Casino trips. Sporting events. It’s all canceled.
“It is going to take at least a year,” Lizak said. “This is going to have a ripple effect.”
The danger, he said, is that when there is a natural disaster, governments depend on motor coach operators to move people. When the military needs to move people, it generally contracts with a motor coach operator. If they all go out of business, that resource will not be there.
“We all have expenses. The buses are terribly expensive. We have money for insurance,” Lizak said. “There is nothing coming in.”
U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, and House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., have asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to consider providing at least $5 billion in loans to bus carriers under a program recently enacted by the CARES Act, Neal’s office said.
“The motorcoach industry is not only an important part of the nation’s transportation network, it is also an important part of the economy, providing over 88,000 good-paying full-time equivalent jobs,” the lawmakers wrote. “However, today the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the motor coach industry. Based on reports from motor coach companies, between 80 and 95 percent of motor coach trips have been cancelled or are simply not being booked due to the pandemic, and scheduled service operations are down 80-90%.”
Neal is chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means and represents both Springfield and the town of Warren in the House.
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