Trains to holiday getaways fully booked for Christmas

Trains to holiday getaways fully booked for Christmas

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Tickets for executive trains heading to Yogyakarta, Central Java
and East Java from Dec. 24 through Dec. 26 have been sold out for
the extended Christmas holiday, with state run PT Kereta Api
Indonesia (KAI) seeing a 15 percent increase in the number of
passengers compared to regular days.

Cities Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Surabaya remained
the favorites among holidaymakers.

"All tickets for the executive trains including Argo Bromo,
Argo Lawu, Argo Muria and Taksaka, to those destinations, have
been sold out. There are still some tickets available for
tomorrow," Ismi, a staffer with PT KAI's ticket reservation
center on Jl. Juanda, Central Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post on
Thursday.

"The Taksaka, bound for Yogyakarta, still has 28 seats while
the Argo Lawu bound for Surakarta still has 130 seats," she
added.

The government's announcement that it would extend the
Christmas holiday to include Friday, plus the weekend, has
encouraged Jakartans to go out of town.

The number of passengers leaving Jakarta daily during the
Christmas holiday this year has reached around 34,500, a 15
percent increase compared to regular days. However, the figure is
less than the Idul Fitri holiday, which saw more than 48,000
passengers leaving the city per day.

Despite the increase in the number of passengers, the head of
Gambir railway station, the largest in the city, Besar Susmiarso,
said that PT KAI would not step up security measures at train
stations and along the railway.

"We did not deploy additional security personnel as we had
done during Idul Fitri," he said, adding that PT KAI would
cooperate with local police stations along the railroad to
maintain security.