Glut on special-offer AVE tickets crashes server with 1,079 sold every minute
Friday, May 26, 2017 @ 4:35 PM
NATIONAL rail board RENFE's website crashed this morning due to a frenzied rush on its one-day-only cut-price tickets for the high-speed AVE network.
To celebrate 25 years of the AVE – which connects the 350-kilometre journey from Valencia to Madrid in 90 minutes, among other rapid routes – RENFE is selling 25,000 one-way trips for €25 a head on the 25th day of every month this year.
But it had to up the quota to 32,000 today after its server seized up at around 02.00, having put the tickets on sale on the stroke of midnight.
At one point, the rail board reveals, it was shifting as many as 1,079 tickets a minute.
RENFE broke records for sales between 00.01 an 00.45 this morning, after which the system began to slow down due to high traffic.
By 01.20, or just an hour and 19 minutes after the cheaper seats went on sale, it had sold a total of 24,191.
By 01.35, the entire 25,000 were sold out, but many buyers were overlapping and buying the same tickets as each other, meaning RENFE had to honour all purchases and throw in a further 7,000.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com