Friday April 30th 2021
Much more than Easter
Bahn expects wave of travelers at Pentecost
This year, Deutsche Bahn wants to have more ICE trains on the rails “than ever before”. She’ll probably need them at Pentecost too. The company expects that many more people will use the rail at the end of May than at Easter.
Deutsche Bahn expects significantly more passengers for Pentecost than at Easter. “We will probably only see that on the basis of the booking figures in the week before Pentecost. Accordingly, we have to react very quickly,” said Michael Peterson, head of long-distance transport, of the German press agency.
The group is planning with additional capacities that could be adjusted if necessary. Over the Easter holidays, the railway had recorded an occupancy rate of 25 to 30 percent on the trains. This corresponded to about 40 to 45 percent of the demand level that arose during normal Easter times. According to Deutsche Bahn, the general utilization level of the trains is currently 35 to 40 percent of the usual traffic. Peterson assumes, however, that the level will rise significantly again in the summer.
“We already saw last year that from the May holidays, but at the latest from Whitsun, travel traffic increases again significantly. We firmly assume that it will be the same again this year.” The railway will have more than 330 ICE trains on the rails this year, “more than ever before,” said Peterson. The fleet is currently being expanded to include another ICE 4 train every three weeks. Around half of the 137 ICE 4 trains ordered from Siemens years ago have now been delivered.
At the weekend, Deutsche Bahn had already announced that it would plan to add more than 10,000 additional seats a day to long-distance traffic alone in the coming months. In addition, there will be holiday trains to the coasts and into the mountains again this year in the summer months of July, August and September. In addition, the group is investing in the redesign of the “DB Premium Lounges” in several cities, the facilities for 1st class customers in the train stations. The first new opening took place at Berlin Central Station.
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