Last day of week-long Chinese New Year holiday sees record number of travellers

Source: Xinhuanet | 02-25-2007 11:29

A record 56.53 million people were expected to travel around the country on Saturday, the last day of the week-long holiday of the Chinese Spring Festival.

The Ministry of Communications estimated the figure will be 7.5 million persons more than that on Friday.

Main passenger flows would appear in Henan, Jiangxi and Hubei provinces where masses of migrant workers leave their homes to return to work in cities, the ministry forecast.

More than 4.8 million passengers would flock to trains on Saturday, while the comparative figure of last year was 4.34 million, according to the Ministry of Railways.

Some 700,000 coaches and 31,000 provisional coaches have been arranged to ease the transportation rush in the holiday period.

The Ministry of Railways has added hundreds of extra train trips per day for the 40-day travel season from Feb. 3 to March 14.

Civil aviation also saw a peak of return passengers on Saturday. Some 620,000 passengers, about 20,000 more than that on Friday, would travel by 4,800 flights, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Gao Ziliang, an official with the administration, said it was unlikely to see serious delays thanks to the good weather conditions.

Editor:Du Xiaodan