Railways, airlines meet wave of passengers

Passenger flows via railways and airlines in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, have increased sharply. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Passenger flows via railways and airlines in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, have increased sharply since Jan 7, local transport departments said.

On Wednesday, railways affiliated with the Guangzhou Railway Group was expecting to handle 1.64 million passengers a day.

At Guangzhou South Railway Station, one of the biggest transport centers in south China, 346,000 passengers were expected to travel via rail.

Shenzhen North Railway Station was expected to send 274,000 passengers on Wednesday, the most in a single day since the Spring Festival travel rush began.

To meet demand, the local railway group expanded capacity by adding 151 night-shift high-speed trains, mainly to the nearby provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Guizhou and to Chongqing and Chaozhou, Shantou, Jieyang and Zhanjiang in Guangdong.

Sources in Guangzhou Railway Group said the passenger flow via railways inside Guangdong on Tuesday had reached almost 90 percent of that of 2019. It was the 11th day of the Spring Festival travel rush,

In another development, Baiyun International Airport in Guangzhou processed more than 1.38 million passengers during the first 11 days of the travel rush, up 32.81 percent year-on-year.