THE world's No 2 forwarder, DB Schenker, declared a 91.3 per cent year-on-year second quarter operating profit increase to EUR1.2 billion (US$1.22 billion), drawn on revenues of EUR14.2 billion, up 35.8 per cent.

The German company, now a unit of state-owned railway Deutsche Bahn, said its strong quarterly performance was made despite volume declines caused by supply chain disruption, Covid restrictions and the Russo-Ukrainian War.

"The first half of 2022 was Schenker's most successful half-year in its 150-year history as a logistics company," said chief financial officer Levin Holle. "DB Schenker played a major role in bolstering the Deutsche Bahn's favourable performance overall."

These gains came despite the forwarder registering a 5.4 per cent drop off in first-half air freight volumes to 673,300 tonnes and a decline of 3.4 per cent in ocean freight volumes to 966,200 TEU.

The results mirror those of DSV and Kuehne+Nagel, which also reported weak volumes when the impact of acquisitions are stripped out, and higher revenues and profits.

The results of DB Schenker helped propel the overall DB Group back to profit for the first time since the Covid outbreak.

DB closed out the first half of 2022 with adjusted EBIT of EUR876 million as revenues increased 28.4 per cent EUR28 billion.