In a bid to discourage termination of booking, Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) has increased penalties for cancellation and rescheduling of the Nairobi-Mombasa standard gauge railway (SGR) tickets.
On Tuesday, The KRC said passengers cancelling their booked trips would now be deducted 30% of the fares up from the previous 20%. Those rescheduling trips will now part away with 10% of the ticket price, the first time the fee is being introduced.
An economy class ticket on the Nairobi-Mombasa route costs Sh1,000 while a first-class ticket goes for Sh3,000, meaning those cancelling trips will now be forced to part with between Sh300 and Sh900.
The latest development comes just months after Kenya Railways banned rescheduling of tickets to try and tame fraud at its train stations.
The rescheduling and cancellation of trips were at the core of a ticketing fraud, which saw the police arrest three Chinese officials and four Kenyans who were behind the SGR ticketing scandal.
Kenya earned nearly Sh10.33 billion from the SGR in the first full year of operations, in a move which shows that the mega project will take longer to break even.
Freight services, which started in January 2018, generated nearly $86.32 million (Sh8.72 billion under) in the year to December, according to data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
