‘The bottom dropped out’ for Village Travel, but here’s why the company is hopeful

Mere months after moving into its new 15-acre headquarters at the northwest corner of K-96 and Ridge Road, Jeff Arensdorf said “the bottom dropped out” for Village Travel when COVID-19 hit the United States.

“Everything got canceled.”

Vacations and field trips were called off, and entertainers postponed tours.

“All the buses came home,” said Arensdorf, who is president of the company.

“The kicker is March and April are our two busiest months, hands down.”

Village has had a combination of layoffs and furloughs. From 320 employees, the company is down to 100. Within that, 40 out of 220 drivers are working. Village has 142 buses.

One employee shuttle is still operating, and Village’s fixed-route service still has three buses operating.

Outside of those, the one bright spot has been a shuttle service Village is providing for medical workers in New York City between hospitals and the hotels where they’re staying.

“We’ve been thankful for that,” Arensdorf said.

Arensdorf said that early in the pandemic Village called a staffing company that it has worked with previously.

“We were looking for any business that we could get.”

Because of their good relationship and Village’s responsiveness — the buses were there within days — Arensdorf said the company “gave us the business over an East Coast operator.”

The service started with nine buses, grew to 35 and now the number is shrinking.

Arensdorf said he has other employees who have been processing refunds and working on future trips.

“We canceled so . . . many charters and tours for the spring,” he said. “A lot of the customers agreed to try to run their trips in the fall. . . . People seem to want to make it happen if they can.”

Other employees are catching up on training, and Arensdorf said buses always need maintenance and “mechanics can always find stuff to do.”

“We’re just doing a lot of work so we’re ready when the phone starts ringing again.”

And he is confident they will, albeit not all at once.

Arensdorf predicts there won’t be much business until September.

Even then, he said, “We’ll be lucky if we’re at 50 percent.”

Though he’s optimistic, Arensdorf is prepared if the pandemic won’t allow fall travel.

“If not, then we’ll go through another round of cancellations and refunds.”

He doesn’t think that’s what will happen.

“Life’s gotta return. I just don’t see there being a second round of shutdowns.”

Also, Arensdorf said he sees growth opportunities because of some companies that were already struggling.

“It’s going to be even harder for them to recover, or their owners are just going to decide that they’re done, and they just want to retire.”

Although Arensdorf said, “There’s days that it’s just bad,” he said he sees one consolation.

“It’s nothing that we did.”

He said it’s easier when it’s out of your control.

“I don’t feel like a failure, so that’s a big thing.”

And he’s holding onto hope.

“People want to go, people want to be around people, people want to travel.”

And though he hasn’t been here before in quite the same way, Arensdorf said, “Our industry has survived a lot of stuff.”

This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 10:01 AM.