USA: The travel industry applauded lawmakers after Congressional leaders mentioned Sunday that they reached a deal on a nearly $900 billion COVID-19 relief package.
“We applaud the bipartisan group of senators that drove progress ahead, and the congressional leadership for striking a bipartisan agreement to produce this desperately wanted help,” U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow mentioned in a statement. “The agreed-upon provisions will give many struggling companies a bridge to 2021.
“More will be wanted to restore the 4.5 million travel jobs lost in the travel and tourism industry, however the course of that produced this agreement is hopefully a positive signal for what can be possible to attain in the next Congress. We urge swift action on these important laws.”
The bill contains an extension of the Paycheck Safety Program, which offers loans to businesses to assist keep their workforce employed amid the coronavirus crisis.
Till the bill language is full, precise dollar amounts and specifics associated with the travel trade will not be available.
Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hailing the “bipartisan breakthrough,” said the invoice’s text should be finalized and, barring any “last-minute obstacles,” cross the Home and Senate before President Donald Trump can signal it into law. Each chamber is anticipated to debate and vote on the package deal Monday.
The measure can be tied to a $1.4 trillion must-pass spending bill that may fund federal companies and packages by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal yr.
The agreement ends months of wrangling between Republicans and Democrats over the sort and dimension of laws to assist the nation’s weather a pandemic that has killed more than 317,000 People, infected millions, and shuttered scores of companies.
President-elect Joe Biden has called the package deal “a good begin,” and Democrats are hopeful that priorities not fully addressed within the aid package will get an additional increase when the new president moves into the White House.
This final deal was months in the making and one which failed to cross before the Nov. 3 election.
The Payroll Support Program, a part of the CARES Act, the $2 trillion bipartisan stimulus package deal signed in March, gave airlines $25 billion to maintain them afloat through coronavirus shutdowns however forbade layoffs for six months, ran out Sept. 30.
Absent a new stimulus deal, airlines announced they would begin laying off workers – some 32,000 at United and American airlines combined. Southwest warned it’d need to put off 6,800 staff, the first layoffs in its history.
