Big increase in cargo
Bahn wants to make money again
03/31/2022, 6:05 p.m
Deutsche Bahn has massively reduced its shortfall in the second Corona year. One of the reasons is the thriving freight business. In the current year, the state-owned company is again aiming for a sales record.
Deutsche Bahn also made a loss in the second year of Corona, but sees a positive trend and wants to be back in the black this year. For the past year, the group recorded a minus of around 900 million euros. In the first Corona year 2020 it was still minus 5.7 billion euros. For Deutsche Bahn, 2021 was “another year in exceptional mode,” said CEO Richard Lutz. “After a long lockdown, passengers returned very quickly in early summer 2021 – but flooding, strikes and new virus variants slowed us down again in the second half of the year.”
At the same time, the second year of the pandemic showed that people wanted to take the train and that companies wanted to shift more traffic to the rails, explained Lutz. “And politicians want to continue to consistently support this path,” he added, emphasizing that “every passenger and every freight train” helps protect the climate.
Group sales increased by more than 18 percent to around 47 billion euros in 2021 compared to the previous year. It was above the pre-crisis level and, according to CEO Lutz, was the highest turnover “in the history of DB”. In the long-distance trains, the number of passengers grew to around 82 million, after 81 million in the previous year. Punctuality fell: according to Bahn, 75.2 percent of long-distance trains reached their destinations on time; In 2020 it was 81.8 percent. According to the company, this was also due to the flood disaster and the GDL strikes.
However, “lack of capacity in the rail network and more construction sites” will remain the greatest challenges in the coming years. In order to eliminate bottlenecks, expand and digitize the network, the railways are investing more than ever before, said Lutz.
There was also growth in DB Cargo’s freight business in 2021. According to Bahn, the biggest upward trend was shown by the logistics subsidiary DB Schenker, for whose sale the Federal Audit Office, among others, had repeatedly spoken out in the past. The logistics subsidiary achieved “the best operating result in its history with 1.2 billion euros and stabilizes the group financially”.
According to the company, there is currently another upward trend. At the beginning of 2022, DB carried more passengers and goods than in the same period last year. In the current year, the group wants to “be back in the black operationally”. Sales should therefore increase to over 48 billion euros. However, all forecasts are also subject to great uncertainty because of the “unforeseeable effects of the Ukraine war”.