Tet Tickets - Periodical Worry

Ticket purchase still difficultPictures of pushing each other or day-long queuing up for Tet ticket purchase are still rampant this year. Despite railway branch’s preparation for serving passengers months ahead, they still have to hang up before excess demand and limited number of tickets. 

 

Since November 15^th 2007, Sai Gon and Hanoi Railway Stations have accepted group ticket booking. Beside group ticket sale, these two stations conduct ticket sale through telephone and ticket delivery to home. Particularly, Sai Gon Station has orgnanised ticket sale via its website www.vetau.com. 

 

Ms Phung Thi Ly Ha, Hanoi Railway Station Deputy head, reveals, “this is the first year Hanoi station has invested in automatic queuing system. After receiving a ballot, customers can wait at chairs instead of having to queue. Our station is also willing to accept payment through Master Card and Visa Card if customers do not have cash with them. Electronic boards automatically update the number of tickets available every five minutes.” The result of automatic queuing up is no brighter, waiting lounge of the station is still packed with customers. .

 

At Hanoi Railway Station, long waiting has made many people weary and worried. Minh, a student of Hanoi University of Technology exhaustedly says, “I had thought that buying ticket to home this year will be less difficult but it turns out that the network was overloaded when booking ticket online. When I switched to telephone booking, the switchboard was busy all the time. I resorted to going to the station and have been kept waiting since 1.30p.m until now, 4p.m but there are still more than 100 people before my turn.” 

Procedures to book tickets online are quite complicated and time-consuming. After making reservation online, customers have to get the ticket at the station. Payment can be made either at the station or through Bank of Industry and Commerce (Incombank)

These procedures get even more ‘cumbersome’ and ‘complicated’ when banks’ documents such as bills, order for payment and payment invoices from ATMs or card payment accepting devices are required to be presented. In case ticket receivers are not the payees on banks’ issued documents, in addition to necessary procedures, receivers must present authoriser’ letter approved by local authority or working office and a copy of indentity card of the passenger, and passengers can only receive tickets two hours before departure time so as to avoid ticket speculation. 

Due to limitations in infrastructure system, there is no increase in the number of trains running for this Tet against last year. If there are six pairs of trains running on Thong Nhat route on ordinary days, there will be twelve pairs during Tet festival. As planned, train doubling will be implemented from December 17^th. Attaching more carriages to local trains or turning a bed into three seats is still a circumstantial solution.

Air passengers’ demand met yet?

Though not as hot as railway tickets, air tickets are also difficult to hunt during days ahead Tet festival. To deal with this fact, Vietnam Airlines (VNA) promises to make an increase of 40-83 percent in the supply of domestic flights for “kings”. 

 

According to VNA, from January 1^st to February 21^st (solar calender), i.e from December 17^th to January 15^th (lunar calender), the airline will push the number of domestic flights on two major domestic routes. In short term, routes having increasing flights will focus on two pivots including Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City – Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City - Da Nang – Ho Chi Minh City. In particular, route Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City will increase 246 flights, exploitation frequency being between 15 and 22 flights/day/route and number of seats supplied being ranged between 3,600 and 5,900 seats/day/route. On the most demanding days, VNA plans to make an increase of 83 percent in flight number against that of normal days. Similarly, route Ho Chi Minh City – Da Nang will increase 72 flights, exploitation frequency being five to seven flights/route/day and number of seats avaiable from 1,200 to 1,700 seats/day/route. On days of highest demand, VNA plans to make an increase of 40 percent in flight number against that of ordinary days.

 

According to statistics of previous years, however, the number of domestic passengers always gets twofold or threefold on Tet festival. With an increase of 40-83 percent in supply, VNA passengers still have to hunt for tickets to be home. Currently, VNA’s booking offices and its authorised agents have started ticket sales for Tet holiday. On first days of ticket sales, “ticket shortage, customer excess” has not happened as usual. However, air passengers tend to book tickets days close to flights, a fortnight ahead is longest. The period on the threshold of Tet, thus, is always “hungry” time for tickets. Customers, therefore, should be active to earlier ticket booking.

 

From January 28^th to February 5^th 2008, Vietnam Airlines will offer discount for night flights. In more detail, one-way ticket from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (prior to Tet) and from February 9^th to February 17^th, one-way ticket from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi (after Tet) will be reduced to VND930,000-1,130,000 from VND1,500,000. One-way ticket from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City (before Tet) and from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang (after Tet) will be reduced from VND950,000 to VND500,000-600,000. 

 

For Kings wishing to enjoy Tet atmosphere overseas, some airlines such as Nok Air, Jestar and Air Asia put forward very attractive discount programmes, i.e Nok Air cuts down air fare for Hanoi – Bangkok and vice versa to a cannot-be-lower price, US$0.09 (tax not included yet) and Jestar drops their tickets for Ho Chi Minh City – Melbourne (Australia) to US$134 only, just a half of previous price.

Nga – Ly