Monday, December 13, 2021
Freight transport outraged industry
Bahn can only hope for mini operating profit
A year ago, Deutsche Bahn was still planning a profit of around one billion euros for 2022. But the corona pandemic is making the group difficult, the core business is stalling. In the meantime, the group only plans with a small profit. There is no shortage of orders, but the anger is great.
According to corporate circles, Deutsche Bahn will not get out of the crisis next year and will cause German industry to run into problems with unreliability. In the coming year, the state-owned company is only planning an operating profit of 100 million euros, said corporate representatives. A year ago, according to corporate documents, a profit of around one billion euros was planned for 2022. In the current year, the operating loss will be around 1.9 billion euros. Only the international logistics subsidiary Schenker prevented a higher minus with its billion-dollar profit.
The German core business, however, continues to falter, also because of the corona pandemic. The main criticism from the industry is freight transport, and there are also complaints about the unreliability of the network subsidiary. The BDI therefore called for an emergency meeting. Deutsche Bahn is suffering heavily from the corona pandemic, especially in passenger transport. In addition, there was the flood disaster in the Ahr valley and the rail network that has been neglected for decades and is now to be rehabilitated in a strenuous effort.
There is no shortage of orders
The railway plays a central role for the new traffic light coalition and the planned traffic turnaround towards climate neutrality in Germany. However, this is likely to be costly. And the state corporation’s debts will continue to rise. Over 33 billion euros is expected next year. A company spokeswoman did not want to comment on the numbers.
Long-distance traffic with IC and ICE alone drove an operating loss of over 1.6 billion euros. The freight railway DB Cargo also made a loss of half a billion euros. There is no shortage of orders. Sales in 2022 are expected to be over EUR 5.6 billion, around EUR 1 billion higher than in 2021. The group as a whole will also be able to increase its sales by almost ten percent to around 45 billion euros in 2021.
However, the railways and their private competitors can hardly process the orders in freight transport. In corporate circles, in addition to staff and vehicle shortages at DB Cargo, DB Netz and construction site management are primarily responsible. This means that goods are switched from the environmentally friendly train back to the truck. Audi confirmed, for example, that some of the vehicle transports at the Neckarsulm location were again carried out by truck.
Deutsche Bahn has been delivering late for weeks
Numerous company representatives, especially from the steel and chemical industry, vented their displeasure at a special meeting of the transport committee of the Federal Association of German Industry (BDI). Deutsche Bahn and its competitors have been delivering products late or not at all for weeks. Just before Christmas – when traffic is particularly booming – this repeatedly leads to bottlenecks.
Another annoyance is that the tracks can currently no longer be blocked using the normal IT booking system. Instead, phone or fax must be used. “Yes, we send mounted messengers with stone tablets,” said a rail competitor. According to industry circles, the background is a security problem in a widespread Java application.
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) also warned of a hacker attack on this location at the weekend. In government circles it was confirmed that this was the connection. A railway spokesman declined to provide information and merely said that they were in contact with the BSI.