Eid Ticket Rush:
10 Million Hits in 30 Minutes as West-Bound Seats Vanish
The rush for Eid-ul-Fitr train tickets has reached a fever pitch, with millions of travelers left empty-handed as seats for the north and west of the country vanished within minutes. On Friday, March 6th, the Bangladesh Railway’s digital servers were hit with a staggering 10.5 million hits in just 30 minutes, starting from 8:00 AM. By 8:30 AM, all 14,443 tickets for western-bound trains from Dhaka for March 16th were completely sold out.
Despite the massive demand, the railway only has 31,255 seats available from Dhaka and 172,528 nationwide for that day. By late morning, popular routes to Rajshahi, Panchagarh, Chilahati, Benapole, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Kurigram, and Khulna showed no remaining seats. To prevent a total server crash, authorities have split sales into two phases, with eastern route tickets going on sale at 2:00 PM.
The advance ticket sale will continue according to the schedule: tickets for March 17th will be sold on March 7th, March 18th on March 8th, and March 19th on March 9th. Sales for March 20th to 22nd will depend on the sighting of the moon. For those who miss out online, the railway will sell 25 percent standing tickets for non-AC coaches at the station counters on the day of the journey. As the "digital gold" hunt continues, passengers are advised to stay logged in early and expect heavy traffic.
DB Tech/DHE/MUM
