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Deutsche Bahn benefits from chaos at airports

2022-07-03T10:10:29.520Z


The chaos at the airports is worth it for the railways: their ICE Sprinter trains along domestic German routes are booked up 40 percent more – also because many airlines are buying tickets to replace canceled flights.


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Plane / ICE: "In the current situation in Germany, more and more people are using the train instead of the plane" (pictures from 2013 and 2016)

Photo: Julian Stratenschulte/Holger Hollemann/DPA

The chaos at German airports is getting bigger.

Thousands of flights had to be cancelled, from Easyjet to Ryanair to Lufthansa.

Passengers miss their plane in long queues and if they do make it, they don't get their suitcases - thousands of pieces of luggage are piling up in the catacombs, including at Frankfurt Airport.

A company profits from the mess.

One that has to struggle with construction sites and delays itself: Deutsche Bahn.

Passenger numbers are skyrocketing on long-distance connections along domestic German routes such as Berlin – Munich or Frankfurt – Hamburg.

"In the current situation, more and more people are using the train instead of the plane in Germany," confirmed a spokesman for SPIEGEL.

An increase of 40 percent

According to Deutsche Bahn, more than 20,000 passengers used the Deutsche Bahn Sprinter every day in May.

"This is a whopping plus of over 40 percent compared to the same period in the pre-Corona year 2019," said a spokesman.

In particular, the Sprinter connections to and from Berlin (Munich-Berlin, Frankfurt-Berlin and NRW-Berlin) are currently very well booked.

And a trend is already emerging: "The pre-bookings for July/August are clearly continuing the Sprinter boom," said the spokesman.

Deutsche Bahn expanded its Sprinter network in time for this unexpected boom.

Sprinters are faster ICE trains because they stop at fewer places.

On the route from Berlin to Munich, for example, this reduces the travel time to less than four hours.

The high level of popularity can be directly attributed to the precarious situation in aviation.

Airlines rebook passengers themselves

The railway notices this in the number of train journeys that are booked by an airline itself, including when a flight is canceled and the passengers are rebooked on the train.

"The cooperation with our partner airlines also has a major impact on the increase in passengers," said the spokesman for the railways.

From April to June, more than twice as many air passengers traveled on our trains as part of the cooperation offers than in the same period last year.

On Monday, Deutsche Bahn wants to present its cooperation with Lufthansa as part of the Star Alliance frequent flyer program.

26 international airlines are organized in the network.

The train has been running between major German cities under an official flight number for Lufthansa passengers for some time, so these routes are no longer offered by plane.

This is to be further expanded.

However, citizens only change to the train after a journey time of a good three hours.

This also depends on the time it takes to get to the airport, which is particularly long in Munich, for example.

Bahn is currently particularly unpunctual

The railway is currently experiencing an onslaught of both leisure and business travelers.

However, construction is going on in many places on the network.

This leads to sometimes chaotic conditions.

The delays occur in particular on congested routes around Frankfurt.

In Mannheim, for example, only 45 percent of all trains are on time, according to SPIEGEL.

The national average is around 60 percent of long-distance trains.

Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has therefore taken responsibility for solving the grievances.

He presented a new type of rehabilitation concept in which entire sections of track are to be renewed and upgraded from the ground up.

"We want to completely renovate an entire route corridor," Wissing told SPIEGEL this week.

That means: where it is necessary to renew the track bed, renew the overhead lines, attach the signaling in the opposite direction and also install more switches in order to be able to switch to the opposite track and switch back quickly.

"Repair work must be planned and carried out in such a way that you hardly notice it in everyday operation," says Wissing.

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2022-07-03

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