Deutsche Bahn AG will discontinue the “school trips and group trips” division, which has existed for half a century, by the end of 2024. This was built during the time of the German Federal Railway and has been used by many schools and their students over the decades.

It is a type of special tour operator where student trips tailored to the needs of schools can be booked from a single source. Most offers are within Germany and include travel by train, accommodation and, if necessary, transfers and excursions. Deutsche Bahn AG and its legal predecessor Deutsche Bundesbahn have earned top money with school trips for decades. In the future, we only want to offer this customer segment train tickets, but no longer offer trips from a single source.

In the future, the focus will be on group trips outside of schools. Apparently the state-owned DB Group is no longer interested in classic school trips. In any case, they no longer want to offer schools flat-rate packages in the future and point out in a statement that there are enough alternative tour operators and travel agencies on the market. Specifically speaking about school trips, it was said that in the future you can only contact the train for tickets. If you would like packages with overnight stays and, if necessary, transfers, you should contact cooperation partners.

It can also be deduced from this that it could inevitably become more expensive, because the “partners” also want to earn money and have to buy services from Deutsche Bahn. It can be assumed that a surcharge will be taken into account, otherwise the deal would not be profitable for the unspecified “cooperation partners”. It is not the first time that Deutsche Bahn AG has withdrawn from a traditional area. For example, in recent years the night trains have been sold to the Austrian Federal Railways because they were supposedly not profitable. The ÖBB sees things completely differently and points to the high level of utilization. In view of the sometimes horrendous ticket prices that are charged, it can be assumed that, at least within Germany, the money is well earned.