China’s 40-day Chunyun or Spring Festival travel rush, the world’s largest human migration, kicked off on Monday with cautious measures amid domestic COVID-19 flare-ups in at least 10 provinces and regions.
Flows of passengers on the first day of Chunyun were also quite steady in train stations around other Chinese cities, with no long queues, according to media reports. China Railway Shanghai Group previously predicted that the week ahead of the Spring Festival and the week after the Lantern Festival could see more concentrated passenger flows.
Affected by domestic outbreaks, trains to and from affected regions have been suspended or reduced. Many people chose to stay put to celebrate their holidays, and some cities gave extra bonuses to those who opted to stay.
Epidemic prevention is still the keyword of this Chunyun. Health codes and masks are essential for taking the public transportation system.
Monday was also the first day that people could purchase rail tickets for Lunar New Year’s Eve. Scenes of people vying for tickets as in previous years were rare this time and data from Qunar.com, a Chinese online travel agency, showed seats for trains to popular destinations were easily available on Monday.
An estimated 24.89 million trips were made nationwide on Monday, according to the Ministry of Transport.
A total of 280 million railway passenger trips are expected during the travel rush, of which the railway system in Beijing is expected to see 8.98 million trips, and about 9.1 million trips were expected to be made in Shanghai railway stations, according to the transportation departments.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said nearly 600,000 passenger flights during the Chunyun period were scheduled, and some 20,000 extra flights were approved to be arranged as well. The country will see about 35 million trips by air, on par with last year’s number.
However, due to the ongoing risk of COVID-19 outbreaks, great uncertainties exist for this year’s Chunyun.
If an outbreak occurs, railway services would be immediately suspended or reduced, and flights would also be adjusted dynamically in response, according to the latest anti-epidemic policy.
The local government in Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province will pay bonuses to enterprises that keep 50 employees or 100 employees on the job with amounts of 50,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan, respectively.
Yiwu, one of the world’s largest small commodity trading hubs in East China’s Zhejiang Province, will make all parking lots, buses and A-level scenic spots free during the holidays.