Millions of migrant workers head home for New Year

1. Wide interior of terminal of Beijing International Airport 2. Medium woman waiting 3. Flight information board 4. Wide pan passengers queuing at check-in desks 5. Airline staff at desks 6. Passengers waiting to check in 7. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin): Wu Xingbiao, passenger leaving Beijing for hometown for Chinese New Year: "I go back home every Chinese New Year. It is very important for Chinese, just as Christmas is for westerners." 8. Wide interior Beijing West Train Station 9. Various migrant workers walking with big bags on shoulders 10. Passengers moving in line 11. Close-up of passengers 12. Screen showing departure time of a train 13. Passengers waiting 14. Men playing cards on the ground 15. Close of cards and cigarettes on the ground 16. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin): Liu Juanhong, migrant worker from Henan Province: "I am feeling very happy because I can join my family soon and I can see many old friends in my hometown. We will celebrate a happy New Year together." +++NIGHT SHOTS+++ 17. Passengers getting into train 18. Pan through window of crowded interior of train 19. Train on the platform STORYLINE: Millions of China's migrant workers in cities are heading back to homes in the countryside for the Chinese New Year celebrations. The desire to get home for the New Year holidays, also called "Spring Festival", has seen 65 (m) million journeys in the last 13 days. Beijing's International Airport and West Train Station were extremely busy on Thursday as travellers headed for their hometowns in time for New Year's Eve on February 17th. "I go back home every Chinese New Year. It is very important for Chinese, just as Christmas is for westerners," said one passenger, Wu Xingbiao, as he waited for his flight. Airlines have been adding extra flights to move more than 51-thousand passengers a day and it's expected that over four-thousand flights will have been run, during the two weeks leading up to New Year. In all the airlines expect to move 630-thousand people. But, perhaps, a better measure of domestic travel is China's extensive train system. The Ministry of Railways has pressed nearly every train carriage available into service, but tickets have still been difficult to come by. Wednesday saw a peak passenger flow of over 3.8 (m) million. "I am feeling very happy because I can join my family soon and I can see many old friends in my hometown. We will celebrate a happy New Year together," Liu Juanhong, a migrant worker from Henan Province told AP Television. Transport authorities are adding an extra 112 train services to cope with the flood of travellers. Travellers have also been heading home by bus, car and bicycle. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/dc64cd6d851dfbacdc0a14dd7474bd26 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork