Overview
- Italo’s parent NTV said it plans to start German long‑distance service in April 2028 using 30 Siemens Velaro trains under a program valued at about €3.6 billion with a long‑term maintenance deal.
- The plan outlines 56 daily trips on two routes anchored in Munich—hourly to Cologne and Dortmund and every two hours to Berlin and Hamburg—run by German subsidiary Atrium SE with about 2,500 service jobs.
- Flixtrain has lodged objections that reports say already blocked a 2028 launch, and company founder André Schwämmlein argued that two providers in long‑distance service are sufficient.
- Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo is seeking up to ten years of guaranteed train paths, which are the reserved time slots on the tracks that today are awarded once a year by DB InfraGo with disputes handled by the federal regulator.
- Siemens would build the trains in Krefeld in a move Italo links to roughly 5,000 industrial jobs, and the operator promises three travel classes with flexible pricing after claiming competition in Italy doubled demand and cut average fares by about 40 percent.