Deutsche Bahn picks aviation executive as chairman of the board
GERMANY: Christoph Franz — former CEO of Swiss International Air Lines and Lufthansa — is set to succeed Werner Gatzer as Deutsche Bahn’s chairman of the board in 2027.
Christoph Franz has served on the DB supervisory board since March 2026. His appointment comes while CEO Evelyn Palla is cutting DB’s senior leadership layer, DB Cargo faces a year-end profitability deadline under EU state aid rules, and a Court of Justice ruling against Germany’s track access charge system remains unimplemented.
The planned succession was first reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and has since been picked up by several German media outlets.
Deutsche Bahn is fully owned by the federal government and it is the government that formally appoints its positions to the supervisory board, which, according to German co-determination law, is equally divided between shareholder representatives and employee representatives.
The man coming in
Christoph Franz joined Deutsche Bahn in 1994, eventually serving on its executive board. In 2004, he became CEO of Swiss International Air Lines, then CEO of Lufthansa from 2011 to 2014. Since leaving Lufthansa he has held board positions across transport, pharma and insurance.
Christoph Franz sat on Stadler Rail’s board from 2011 until May 2026, when he stepped down at Stadler’s annual general meeting. He had joined the DB supervisory board two months earlier, in March 2026, meaning the two mandates overlapped briefly.
Stadler is an active supplier to Deutsche Bahn and a direct competitor to Siemens Mobility in several procurement processes where DB is the contracting authority. Stadler’s chairman Peter Spuhler noted at the time that he was “particularly pleased” about Franz’s election to the DB board.
What he inherits
DB Cargo must reach profitability by the end of 2026 under EU state aid conditions. Palla has restructured the senior leadership layer and cut thousands of jobs in the freight division.
On 19 March, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Germany’s track access charge system violates EU law. The case was brought by DB InfraGO against the Bundesnetzagentur, challenging the calculation method used for regional passenger charges. Germany has not yet announced how it will respond.
Gatzer, a former state secretary in the federal finance ministry, has chaired the board since 2022.