German railway Deutsche Bahn reports €2.4bn loss for 2023

Higher costs for construction, energy and personnel, increased interest rates and several bitter labour strikes caused German state-owned railway Deutsche Bahn to lose billions of dollars last year.

Deutsche Bahn posted a loss of €2.4 billion ($2.6 billion) in 2023, the company announced in Berlin on Thursday. In the previous year, the loss was significantly lower at around €200 million.

In the same period, turnover for the railway fell by 13% to around €45.2 billion.

Deutsche Bahn said that hefty reported losses on operations last year can be attributed to advance payments on major future infrastructure investments, which are expected to be reimbursed by the German government during the current year.

In 2023, Deutsche Bahn invested around €7.6 billion from its own funds in urgently needed infrastructure upgrades.

Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) fell to a minus of almost €1 billion, after a positive result of around €1.2 billion euros in the previous year. Deutsche Bahn said operating results should be back in the black in the current year.

Overloaded routes and a rail network in need of renovation in many places resulted in a high level of delays on Deutsche Bahn trains last year.

Almost a third of long-distance passenger trains were late in 2023.

Both the railway and the German government are planning to invest record sums in the coming years to get the country's rail infrastructure back in shape and expand capacity.

However, those plans require high levels of construction and renovation which, which will likely continue to slow down traffic and contribute to further delays for trains in the coming years.

Demand for rail transport remained high however, with around 1.8 billion journeys recorded in 2023, 5.8% more than in the previous year.