Ukrainians have been complaining on social media about problems with buying tickets for Ukrzaliznytsia trains. They say that as soon as sales open 20 days before the planned trip, the app stops working. Once the “technical issues” are resolved, tickets are no longer available – they are all bought out. Previously, difficulties in purchasing tickets arose only for international flights, in particular from Kyiv to Chisinau or Warsaw. Now, problems arise even when buying tickets for trains within Ukraine, in particular to Mukachevo, Uzhhorod, Odesa, etc.
“Ticket sales open 20 days before the trip at 8am. I logged into the app at 7:59 a.m., but right at the start of the sale, any tickets I tried to buy were already purchased. In a matter of minutes,” said K. Olena, who tried to buy train tickets from Uzhhorod.
“As a result, in the half an hour I spent in the app, almost all tickets for absolutely all trains of my destination were purchased,” Olena said.
According to her, the app was also constantly freezing.
“It said a technical failure, but I don’t know how other people redeemed tickets during the technical failure,” she said.
The girl stressed that she tried to contact the Ukrzaliznytsia hotline at 0-800-503-111 to file a complaint, but it was impossible to communicate with the operator.
“Despite the availability of such a function, I was never connected to the operator – the connection was disrupted,” said Olena.
People also complain about problems with ticketing on social media and call it a real “quest from Ukrzaliznytsia”.
“It’s some kind of trash, you can’t buy tickets, and the train is half-empty,” social media users say.
“It seems that someone wants to crush Ukrzaliznytsia and buy it for a song, otherwise why are there no tickets and the carriages are empty?”
“We failed to get 4 of us from Kharkiv to Odesa”
“I bought tickets from Dnipro to Przemyśl, and it was the worst quest I’ve ever done in my life. Before I bought it, I was on sedatives for a week”
“Trying to buy a ticket Dnipro-Truskavets 7:58 is not yet on sale. at 8:00 the service temporarily stops working until 10:00, and at 10:01 there are no tickets available.”
The official chatbot of Ukrzaliznytsia emphasises that train tickets are simply sold out quickly.
“Summer is a time when the demand for travel usually increases, as many people go on holiday, vacation or visit family and friends. As more people are planning trips, train tickets can be sold out faster than at other times of the year. This can lead to a limited number of available seats on trains or even to the fact that tickets for popular routes may be sold out on the day of the opening of sales,” the official UZ chatbot reports.
Social media users are convinced that bribery is at work.
In order to find out why the app constantly reports a “technical failure”, why tickets are sold out almost instantly, and how UZ is fighting against possible overbuying, the editorial team of 
Meanwhile, Ukrzaliznytsia emphasizes that the fight against overbuying continues: starting from 1 August 2024 , tickets for flights 19/20 Kyiv – Chełm – Kyiv, 23/24 Kyiv – Chełm – Kyiv, 51/52 Kyiv – Przemyśl – Kyiv, 89/90 Kyiv – Przemyśl – Kyiv, 73/74 Kharkiv – Przemyśl – Kharkiv will be sold in the app and on the new Ukrzaliznytsia ticketing website exclusively with verification through “Diia.Signature”. Previously, such verification was used to sell tickets for flights to/from Warsaw and Vienna.
Previously, fraudsters actively offered their tickets online. In particular, through the OLX sales platform. Now a number of them have moved their sales to Telegram or Tik-tok.
According to social media users, there are also Viber chats where tickets are sold at a markup of UAH 500.
Despite the urgency of the problem, Ukrzaliznytsia still allows people to buy tickets without documents or verification through Diia.
How this problem will be solved and whether Ukrzaliznytsia is working on this issue at all is currently unknown.
However, according to Serhiy Vovk, director of the Centre for Transport Strategies, the impasse can be resolved by technically improving the services provided by the country’s main railway carrier.
“I have heard about this problem, but it lies in the realm of it-solutions. Obviously, it has now become more acute and there is an incorrect operation of the application. This is a problem of the application itself. That is, it is not a transport problem. Given the public outcry, I believe that Ukrzaliznytsia will soon respond,” he said in a commentary
serhiy Vovk, director of the Centre for Transport Strategies, said in a commentary.
Author: Alyona Kaplina