Amtrak carried a record 32.5 million passengers in the 2019 fiscal year with record growth on the Northeast Corridor and state supporter lines, officials with the railway system said Friday.
Amtrak officials said the company also inched closer to breaking even in the last fiscal year, reporting new financial milestones. Amtrak’s total operating revenue rose to $3.3 billion, up by 3.6 percent from the previous year, the company said.
“Our expectation is that in 2020, we will actually make money, we will have positive earnings for the first time in the company’s history,” Amtrak Board Chairman Anthony Coscia said at a morning news conference. “This is an unbelievable accomplishment that a short period ago no one would have thought it was possible.”
Amtrak reported an adjusted operating loss of $29.8 million across its network in fiscal 2019 that ended Sept. 30. This was an improvement of 82.6 percent, compared with its operating loss of $170.6 million in fiscal 2018. Amtrak has eliminated nearly a half a billion dollars in operating losses in the last decade, Coscia said.
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