Westbound train tickets for the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays were completely sold out within just 30 minutes of going on sale online on the second day of ticket sales.
The Bangladesh Railway website began ticket sales at 8 a.m. on Saturday. Tickets for the eastern region will be available starting from 2 p.m.
Md Mohabbatjan Chowdhury, a Bangladesh Railway official, said, “Between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., there were 7.3 million hits on the Bangladesh Railway website.”
Advance tickets are made available 10 days before the scheduled travel date, with Saturday’s sales covering March 25.
Tickets for March 31, April 1, and April 2 will be released following the sighting of the moon for Eid.
This year, Bangladesh Railway is offering 35,315 advance tickets daily from Dhaka for Eid travel.
At 8:03 a.m., a check on the ticketing website showed a few available seats, including 38 Snigdha-class and 8 AC seats on the Rajshahi-bound Silkcity Express, 3 Snigdha-class seats on the Bonolota Express, and 8 AC and 19 Snigdha-class seats on the Dhumketu Express.
However, by 8:05 a.m., all AC and Snigdha-class tickets were sold out.
Tickets for AC coaches to Rangpur, Dinajpur, Panchagarh, Parbatipur, Natore, Khulna, and Benapole were fully booked within the first 10 minutes.
By 8:30 a.m., all but one Shovon Chair ticket had been sold.
“Now, all tickets are sold online. Due to the high demand, they sell out quickly. Since everything is digital, very few people come to the station for tickets. A couple of people came on Friday, but hardly anyone visited today,” said Kamalapur Station Master Md Anwar Hossain.
Since Eid-ul-Fitr 2023, Bangladesh Railway has switched to a fully online ticketing system for Eid travel, introducing a two-shift ticketing system (morning and afternoon) last year to alleviate server congestion.
