Overview

• Flix plans up to 65 Talgo-built high‑speed trains with Siemens locomotives, aiming to build Europe’s largest private fleet and nearly quintuple its capacity.
• The company pitches significantly lower fares than the state operator, while acknowledging average prices could rise with demand yet stay below Deutsche Bahn’s levels.
• Deutsche Bahn’s long‑distance punctuality slumped in July to 56.1% on‑time, with passenger punctuality at 59.4%, intensifying scrutiny of service reliability.
• Experts flag high track access fees, an overloaded network, and uncertain scheduling capacity as major risks for private expansion on Germany’s rail infrastructure.
• Flix alleges unequal treatment in assigned running times compared with DB services on some routes, as DB InfraGo controls path allocation on a market where DB holds about 95% share.