Kenya Railways announces expanded SGR booking offer to woo passengers

The Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) has moved to woo passengers to its railway service, the Madaraka Express, in a new round of incentives announced Friday.

Central to the fresh incentives which are set to begin during the second anniversary of the service on June 1, 2019 is the expansion of the advanced booking window for the Nairobi and Mombasa commute.

KRC has expanded the window by an additional 30 days stretching the period to 6o days in an attempt to increase the number of passengers’ in transit on the nearly 450 kilometers line.

Further additions to the SGR service includes the enabled cancellation and rescheduling of online bookings for the service, and the request for refunds to cancelled trips within a 72-hour time frame.

“Tickets will be rescheduled for the same class, origin and destination as per the initially purchased ticket, subject to availability. Passengers may reschedule up to 48 and 72 hours for individuals and groups respectively before time of travel,” KRC noted in a statement.

However, the new adjustments will require minors above three years to pay full fare while limiting luggage to a maximum of two pieces capped at a weight of 30 kilograms in total.

The raft of measures by Kenya Railways is expected to improve passenger numbers on the SGR service to build on the momentum created during passenger journeys in the service’s first year of operation.

Having moved a total of one million passengers in the first year alone, passenger journeys on the line were up by 45 percent in 2018 in 4,489 trips during the year to see revenues surge to Ksh1.7 billion from Ksh. 700 million during the 12-month period.