To Amtrak's Alex Kummant: Please Fix Bad NE Corridor Fares!

Alex Kummant is Amtrak's president. In this video, I directly ask him to fix two major problems with the fairness of the Northeast Corridor fare structure. In particular, I ask him to stop faking ticket shortages in the Amtrak reservation system, which I've clearly demonstrated that Amtrak does do in another video. I also ask him to please not charge less for longer rides on the corridor when reservations are made the same day, same time, same train. I have another YouTube video demonstrating this problem -- charging Washington riders $69 to get to New York, but then hitting Delaware ($95) and Philadelphia ($83) with higher fares for taking just a portion of the full trip from Washington.

Amtrak pretty clearly doesn't want people to know that it has its fare system rigged to give seats and fare breaks to riders to and from Washington, while denying those seats and adding punishingly higher fares for people trying to board in between those two cities.

America has one federally owned passenger rairoad company, and it's rather heavily subsidized, so I don't think it is fair at all if it plays "Trick the Citizen" to get more money out of people boarding in the Philadelphia and Delaware areas.

When people buy tickets to and from the Philadelphia and Wilmington areas, they ought to at least have the peace of mind to believe that the railroad is selling them tickets at its best current price. That's clearly not the current case. People traveling from Wilmington to New York on key morning trains lose $34 by trusting that Amtrak is being fair to them. They should buy their tickets, instead, from Baltimore ($61 vs. $94 at Wilmington) and simply board the train at Wilmington to save money.

America deserves a railroad that plays fair, a railroad we can trust.

What I absolutely detest is finding that we have a national railroad that does its best to suck up to the powers that fund it in the greater Washington area, to the expense and detriment of the citizens just trying to get to work along the Northeast Corridor.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Amtrak
• Alex
• Kummant
• Northeast
• Corridor
• trains
• rail
• fair
• fares
• ticket
• faking

[Donoltmann]

How is this any different than what the airlines and frt railroads do?

[dc3rdrail]

It's different in two ways. Airlines won't let you on the plane mid-trip with a ticket from a different city, but Amtrak has a policy of letting anyone board and then honoring any ticket that includes current ride as a subset.  And second, airlines, to my knowledge, never price flights in such a way that getting off the plane early in a ticketed trip saves you money. Amtrak does this. Bottom line: Amtrak "hides" its best fares, given its access policy rules. Airlines don't.

[Thunderheadpros]

Mr.dc3rdrail: I am a 100% Amtrak fan, and agree with you. However, u said that coach was sold out between NYP-30th Street, and coach was availiable between 30th street- WAS. Coach could have been sold out, but many people GOT OFF at Philadelphia, thus more coach seats were avialble. Great video other wise

[peaatebell1]

I just can't believe a train fare is over $100 more than a flight. Why would anyone ride the train if it takes 5 times as long to travel and is more expensive? That makes no sense to me.

[Donoltmann]

Airlines most certainly DO price this way. Consider a flight from A to B to C: The fare from A to B may be more than from A to C! And, if you ticket from A to C and get off at B, they will bill you the difference.

Frt. RRs do the same thing. Wheat from Minnesota to Seatle moves cheaper than Montana to Seattle.

You price to value, not cost.

[railmogul2]

Kummant is ex Union Pacific