České dráhy to Offer Hundreds of Additional Seats in Its Booster Carriages before Christmas

The pre-Christmas time period is traditionally associated with greater demand for travelling. That is why České dráhy will dispatch a larger number of booster carriages offering altogether several hundred extra seats in total. The carrier also recommends making reservations early, and using regional trains for shorter routes, such as travels in the Prague surroundings.

“Every year in the pre-Christmas time we send out a number of booster carriages. Most of the booster carriages are planned, but we will also have carriages ready for operational boosting of the busiest trains. We will start with the boosting capacities already about the middle of the week and we expect to have them in place until at least Saturday 23 December. Traditionally, most of the booster carriages will go from Prague to the eastern regions of the country, in trains to Ostrava, Wallachia and Central Moravia. More carriages will also appear on other lines in the pre-Christmas season, for example from Prague to České Budějovice or to Plzeň and Cheb,” says Jiří Ješeta, Member of the Board of Directors and Deputy Director General for Passenger Transport.

České dráhy recommends making seat reservations for long-distance trains in good time. However, some trains are already now completely sold out, or the last free seats remain available there. For example, the SC Pendolino Košičan from Prague to Slovakia with departures on Friday and Saturday 22 and 23 December. On these days, it is still possible to travel to northern and eastern Slovakia on the board of the EuroCity Ostravan and Valašský expres trains with a change to Slovak national trains, e.g., in Púchov or Žilina.

Passengers travelling shorter distances during the transport peak period before Christmas, especially in the area of large conurbations, such as Prague, are recommended to use regional trains instead of long-distance trains. These are, e.g., the Prague – Kolín, Prague – Benešov u Prahy, Prague – Beroun routes, etc.

Passengers without seat reservations can then check the occupancy of the train also shortly before departure in České dráhy’s E-shop or in the My Train mobile application, where customers can view the configuration of the entire train and a display of reserved and unreserved seats on most long-distance trains. Depending on the occupancy of the train, they can then decide whether to choose the relevant connection service or to use another train.