
The historic and luxurious Roosevelt Hotel, one of the oldest of New York grand old hotels, closed … [+] permanently in October, because of continued financial losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on travel to New York City. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
Even as airline industry leaders continue to beg – loudly, and so far unsuccessfully – for another round of government support, the nation’s huge hotel industry continues to move ever closer toward collapse if it can’t get Congress to provide it at least some relatively modest financial support.
On Wednesday Congressional leaders and the White House produced a reworked version of a compromise Covid-19 stimulus package, now valued at $908 billion. And unlike an earlier $950 billion version, the current bill would include $17 billion in payroll support for airlines through March. Leaders of the hotel industry, which also would have received nothing under the original plan rolled out on Tuesday, now think hotels stand a good chance of getting at least some financial help out.
The original proposal was shot down immediately as being too small to please liberals, too expensive to please conservatives and too narrow and vague to win the White House’s support. It was floated by an unlikely coalition of centrist Republicans and Democrats from both houses of Congress. But it included no more money for the airlines or hotels.
That was surprising in that the airline industry has been pleading publicly for more support since Sept. 30. That’s when the CARES Act that provided up to $50 billion to undergird carriers’ liquidity and keep them from laying off more workers, expired.
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