"The increase in passenger volume during the 2024 New Year holiday compared to 2023 was also caused by the increasingly improving pandemic condition,"
Jakarta (ANTARA) - State-owned railway company PT KAI recorded a 48-percent increase in passenger numbers to 222,292 during the New Year holiday return flow on Monday (January 1, 2024) from 149,787 the previous year.

The 222,292 passengers consisted of 55,875 executive class passengers, 9,914 business class passengers, and 156,503 economy class passengers.

"The increase in passenger volume during the 2024 New Year holiday compared to 2023 was also caused by the increasingly improving pandemic condition," Vice President of Public Relations at KAI, Joni Martinus, said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The higher number of passengers could also be attributed to the improvement in KAI's services, for instance, through the rejuvenation of facilities and the addition of new train sets, he added.

Martinus informed that train occupancy on January 1 reached 130 percent, with KAI offering a total of 170,788 seats. The 30 percent figure reflected the dynamic passengers who hopped on and off between the initial station and the final station.

He said that to serve passengers during the peak of the 2023 New Year holiday, his party operated 378 trains comprising 288 regular trains and 90 additional trains.

Among long-distance trains, the highest ticket sales were for the January 1, 2024, departure of the Airlangga train (KA 235) on the Surabaya Pasarturi-Pasarsenen route, with the number of passengers reaching 2,320 people.

Other sought-after routes on the same date included Yogyakarta-Jakarta, Solo-Jakarta, Purwokerto-Jakarta, and Surabaya-Bandung.

Currently, 436,394 tickets, or 37 percent of the total 1,180,300 tickets provided for the New Year holiday return flow for the January 1–7 period, are still available, Martinus informed.

"There were also 7,570 foreign passengers from the December 21, 2023–January 1, 2024 period," he added.

The Jakarta-Bandung, Jakarta-Yogyakarta, and Bandung-Yogyakarta routes are mostly being favored by tourists arriving from the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, China, and others, Martinus said.

“We are also reminding passengers to allocate sufficient time to arrive at the departure station so they do not miss their train," he added.

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Translator: Farhan Arda N, Resinta Sulistiyandari
Editor: Arie Novarina
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