Deutsche Bahn denies discount card abolition

Deutsche Bahn on Thursday denied reports by German public-service broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk (hr) that it planned to scrap the discount BahnCard in its current form. The rail company described the claims as a "brazen hoax."

In the report, the broadcaster cited a confidential document for the railway board meeting, scheduled for December 10, which detailed plans for the BahnCard to become a "customer account" service. The alleged account would provide reductions in correlation to a passenger's usage - in end effect entitling only large customers and frequent travelers to discounts.

At present, all BahnCard owners are entitled to different degrees of discount on trips depending on the category of card they have purchased.

According to Hessischer Rundfunk, the document also detailed widespread changes across Deutsche Bahn's long-distance transport services in order to compete with other travel providers such as intercity coaches, which the corporation initially completely underestimated.

Loss of sales due to long-distance buses was estimated in the middle term at 240 million euros ($295 million) per year. In 2014, the figure stood at 120 million euros.

Night service put to bed

According to the report, Deutsche Bahn also wants to drastically save money and reduce costs to 1.5 billion euros by 2019, which could include completely abolishing the company's night train services.

The corporation is also currently fighting a losing battle against ever-growing numbers of delays. The confidential template for the board meeting showed that in the past year an average of 34 Intercity-Express (ICE) trains per week were either partially or completely cancelled.

Train driver strikes

Nationwide strikes by Deutsche Bahn train drivers have also left thousands of rail passengers stranded across Germany this year. The walkouts were over demands by the GDL train drivers union for higher wages, a shorter working week and the right to negotiate on behalf of more than just train drivers and engineers.

Failed abolition

The train operator had already planned to do away with the BahnCard 50 in 2002/2003 in order to make the most of higher fares on well-utilized train services on Friday and Sunday. The plans were cancelled, however, following intense public protests.

In September of this year, Deutsche Bahn welcomed its five millionth BahnCard customer. There are currently BahnCard holders in 157 countries worldwide.

ksb/tj (Reuters, AFP, dpa)