SRT Ticket Reservation Rate at 78% During Seollal Holiday Period ... 5.3%p Increase Compared to Last Year's Chuseok

On the 26th, when the reservation for Suseo High-Speed Railway (SRT) train tickets for the Lunar New Year holiday began, SRT Suseo Station in Gangnam-gu, Seoul was quiet. This year, due to concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), all ticket reservations for the Lunar New Year holiday are conducted 100% online, and only window seats can be reserved to maintain social distancing. On the 26th, priority reservations for senior and disabled customers started, followed by reservations for the Gyeongbu Line on the 27th and the Honam Line on the 28th. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] SR, the operator of SRT (Suseo High-Speed Railway), announced that from the 18th to the 20th of this month, 143,420 seats, accounting for 78% of the 183,804 seats available for sale, were booked for the Lunar New Year holiday tickets.

The booking rate for the Gyeongbu Line was 78.1%, and for the Honam Line, it was 77.8%.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19 during the Lunar New Year period (January 28 to February 2), SR sold only window seats, which is half of the total 355,470 seats. The booking rate compared to the total seats was 40.3%.

This SRT Lunar New Year ticket booking rate increased by 5.3 percentage points compared to last year's Chuseok and by 14 percentage points compared to last year's Lunar New Year.

Remaining seats began to be sold from 3 p.m. on the same day at station counters, automatic ticket machines, the website, and the app.

SR will not sell standing tickets during this Lunar New Year period to maintain social distancing on trains. Additionally, to eradicate unfair ticket trading, SR plans to cooperate with secondhand trading platform operators and intensively crack down on abnormal ticket transactions such as unfair trading through its own monitoring.

An SR official said, "We will strengthen quarantine measures to ensure safe train use during this Lunar New Year holiday" and added, "We will also thoroughly maintain facilities and train vehicles."