Status: 03/30/2022 5:38 p.m
Bahn boss Richard Lutz and the group board member Berthold Huber will receive ten percent more money in the future. In addition, the Supervisory Board extended contracts and dealt with the new business figures.
Bahn boss Richard Lutz and the group board member responsible for passenger transport, Berthold Huber, are to receive higher salaries. The supervisory board today approved an increase in fixed salaries, according to sources within the board. The two board members will therefore receive ten percent more in the future.
The increase was actually planned for last year. Due to the financial difficulties of the group in the Corona crisis, however, it was suspended at the time. Lutz’ fixed salary was last at 900,000 euros a year, Huber’s at 650,000 euros.
Huber favorite to succeed Pofalla
In addition, the Supervisory Board extended the contracts of Finance and Freight Transport Board Members Levin Holle and Sigrid Nikutta by five years. The seven-strong Deutsche Bahn board of directors is still facing changes with the recently announced departure of Ronald Pofalla. The infrastructure board wants to stop at the end of April.
Berthold Huber is the favorite for Pofalla’s successor, as announced yesterday from supervisory board circles. Accordingly, there could be a special meeting of the control committee “soon”. The “Spiegel” had previously reported on the personnel.
The 58-year-old Huber has been with Deutsche Bahn since 1997 and has been responsible for passenger transport since 2015. According to information from the “Spiegel”, his previous department is to be taken over by the department heads for long-distance and regional transport.
Are Deutsche Bahn’s goals realistic?
In addition, the supervisory board discussed today the business figures for the past year, which Deutsche Bahn intends to publish tomorrow. According to media reports, the bottom line was a minus of around 900 million euros. Sales amounted to 47 billion euros. In 2020, the minus was even higher at 5.7 billion euros.
With billions of investments, especially in the existing network, Deutsche Bahn is still pursuing the goal of doubling the number of passengers by 2030. Even the old federal government had decided, among other things, that the trains should eventually run in the so-called Germany cycle – i.e. every half hour between the big cities and every hour between the middle centers.
Deutsche Bahn has a record budget of 13.6 billion euros at its disposal for implementation this year. Nevertheless, critics consider these plans to be “illusory”. Winfried Wolf, co-author of an “Alternative Annual Report”, pointed out that in the Corona years 2020 and 2021 only around 81 million journeys by passengers in ICE and Intercity trains were recorded due to the crisis. This year Deutsche Bahn expects significantly more than 100 million.