"Book First and Cancel If Needed"...60,000 Empty Seats on Chuseok Trains

Assemblyman Hong Gi-won "Mass No-shows Harm Genuine Consumers"

Photo by Asia Economy

It has been revealed that approximately 60,000 seats are running empty during the Chuseok holiday period. It is estimated that there are many phantom bookings due to the low cancellation fees.

According to data submitted by Korea Railroad Corporation (Korail) to Hong Gi-won, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, on the 9th, the number of 'reservation no-shows' (No Show) where tickets booked for the Chuseok holiday last year were canceled or refunded around the departure time was 695,246 cases. This is a 4.1% (27,216 cases) increase compared to the 668,030 no-show cases during the 2020 Chuseok holiday.

Among the tickets canceled or refunded during last year’s Chuseok holiday, 91.6%, or 636,946 tickets, were resold, but 8.4%, or 58,300 tickets, were not resold and were treated as unused.

In the case of the Chuseok holiday two years ago, 9.8% of the canceled or refunded tickets (66,8030 cases), amounting to 65,604 tickets, were not sold.

Although the holiday period is known for scenes where people struggle to get train tickets, tens of thousands of seats are running empty on trains.

The occurrence of such reservation no-shows is interpreted as being due to many phantom bookings made with the mindset of "just book first" because of the low cancellation fees.

2019~2021 Chuseok Train Ticket No-Show Status

As the number of unused tickets increases, it results in harm to other citizens who genuinely want to board the train, so there are calls for measures to minimize no-shows.

Representative Hong Gi-won said, "Every holiday season, there is fierce competition to book train tickets, but because of the occurrence of 'mass no-shows,' the actual users who fail to get tickets end up waiting at the station to get canceled tickets."

He added, "The damage caused by train no-shows, a representative public service, ultimately falls back on the people. We need to strengthen cancellation fee regulations to protect returning travelers from inconvenience."