As the Holi festival approaches on March 4, thousands of metro cities are heading home, leading to a massive travel rush, a sharp increase in air ticket prices and long queues for booking trains.
Amid the huge demand for train and flight tickets, prices have risen sharply with flight prices exceeding that $10,000 per seat and the waiting list in trains is over a hundred.
Travel rush is common around festivals in India. This is also the time when migrants look for last-minute reservations on trains. Even the special trains specially announced by Indian Railways to handle the festival surge are also witnessing long queues.
Long queue at Rajdhanis, special trains are already full
Amid the travel rush on Holi, trains on major routes are witnessing long queues. On the Delhi-Patna route, DBRT Rajdhani (12424) is showing a queue of 114 passengers for March 2 and 113 for March 3. Likewise, Patna Rajdhani (12310) has 130 passengers on waiting list for March 2 and 95 passengers for March 3 for 3AC.
A special train, introduced between Delhi and Danapur (Patna), in March, was also full, with a waiting list of 10 trains for 3AC on March 2.
For the Delhi-Lucknow route, Vande Bharat Express (22,426) has a waiting list of 74 people for March 2 and 42 for March 3 on 3AC, while Shatabdi Express (12,004) shows 66 people waiting for CC for March 2.
The Holi Special Train (04214) is already full, with a waiting list of 9 people on 2 March.
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On the Delhi-Dibrugarh route (near Guwahati), DBRT Rajdhani (12424) has 97 passengers on the waiting list for March 2 and 49 for March 3 for the third AC compartment. DBRG Rajdhani (20,504) records a waiting list of 84 people for March 2 and 87 for March 3.
Airline tickets are witnessing a huge boom
When it comes to booking flights, ticket prices reach up to ₹9,000 for some cities during Holi. Delhi to Patna flight fares are 9,000+ for Indigo and SpiceJet on March 2. Similar prices apply on March 3 as well, with prices reaching 12,000 during morning hours, such as 9am or 10am.
For the flight from Delhi to Guwahati, passengers will have to pay over 6,000 and 7,000 for the morning departure on March 2. Fare prices are also the same on March 3.
Also Read: Protect your skin and hair on Holi: Experts share pre-and post-Holi care tips to prevent dryness and irritation
Flights from Delhi to Mumbai also saw a rise in prices, with tickets touching 5,000 per seat on March 2 and around 5,400 tickets on March 3.
Earlier, the Indian Railways announced the start of 1,244 special Holi train trips across various railway zones from February 25 to March 18, news agency PTI reported. Trains cover major cities and regional centres. Major long distance connections included Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur to destinations like Danapur, Gorakhpur, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Samastipur and Barauni.
