Deutsche Bahn returns to profit with €147 million half-year surplus, but punctuality drops to 59%

The turnaround in numbers

Deutsche Bahn on Thursday announced a net profit of €147 million for the first six months of 2026, its first half-year in the black since 2019. The year-earlier period had shown a loss of €760 million. Operating profit (EBIT) climbed by €650 million to €415 million, and revenue rose almost 2 percent to €13.6 billion. The company attributed the swing to broad operational improvements across all divisions, the early effects of a restructuring that includes job cuts in senior management and internal services, and stronger passenger demand driven partly by high petrol prices linked to Middle East instability.

Why more people are boarding trains

Ridership gained roughly 17 million journeys to top 960 million in the half-year, with the railway flagging discount fares for families, young travellers and last-minute bookings as a draw. The carrier also noted that many commuters switched from cars to trains on regional routes, citing elevated fuel costs. A passenger interviewed at Munich’s main station praised the sustainability of train travel and the time it affords for reading; another traveller from Austria pointed to cheap connections. Yet Green transport politician Matthias Gastel framed the demand surge as a question: potential he sees, but he asked how many more would ride if trains actually kept to schedule.

How many people would ride the train if the trains were more punctual?

The punctuality predicament

Punctuality deteriorated further even as finances improved. Only 59 percent of long-distance trains reached their destinations with less than six minutes of delay, down four percentage points from the same period in 2025. Cancelled trains are excluded from the count, a fact mobility researcher Andreas Knie described as making the statistic look less catastrophic than reality. In regional services, 88.2 percent of trains met the six-minute threshold. The railway blamed an ailing network and what it called a record number of construction sites. Heavy snowfall in January and February plus a June heatwave added to disruptions. The operator finished 14,000 work sites in the half-year and labelled 2026 a “Super-Baujahr”.

In long-distance traffic, it looks catastrophic. And the trains that are cancelled entirely don’t even count in the statistics.

A new minister steps into the fray

Just 24 hours after being sworn in, federal transport minister Steffen Bilger received the half-year figures. He called the numbers “pleasing” on public radio but made clear that financial recovery alone was not enough. On his second day in office he met with CEO Evelyn Palla and the heads of the railway unions. Palla, who has led the company since October 2025, said she was delighted by the milestone but stressed she would be satisfied only “when the quality of day-to-day rail services is also up to scratch.”

For the first time in seven years, our rail business is back in the black. I will only be satisfied when the quality of day-to-day rail services is also up to scratch.

What comes next

Management expects the full year to close with a positive result, despite risks at the freight subsidiary DB Cargo from a sluggish economy. The internal overhaul is running ahead of plan; the company said roughly 30 percent of its 2028 targets have already been met through faster-than-scheduled headcount reductions among senior managers and in-house service units. At the same time, investment in the network continued to rise compared with the first half of 2025, and the building offensive that is partly responsible for current delays is likely to intensify before it can begin to improve reliability. Bilger’s insistence on rapid progress in punctuality sets the stage for a tenure in which the balance sheet and the departure board must both move in the same direction.