CFR Călători's "historic" profit has melted away: record losses, masked by huge subsidies

CFR Călători, the national passenger rail operator, managed to "perform" to account for financial losses worth 238.8 million lei in the first six months of 2025, i.e. more than double the 98.54 million lei recorded in the same period in 2024, according to an article published at the end of last week by the Club Feroviar website. The cited source shows that the semi-annual accounting reporting leaves no room for interpretation: the company's results are deteriorating rapidly, debts are increasing at all levels and the only engine that keeps the locomotive on the rails is the periodic injection of public money. CFR Călători's bank loans now total 318.5 million lei, compared to 298 million lei at the end of last year, tax debts and social contributions have skyrocketed to 460 million lei, from 328 million lei, and trade liabilities have increased to 589 million lei, compared to 542 million lei previously.

Turnover fell to 1.38 billion lei in the first half of this year, after being 1.59 billion lei in the same period in 2024. Operating expenses fell slightly, from 1.75 billion lei to 1.68 billion lei, but not enough to offset the collapse in revenues. As a result, CFR Călători's gross loss rose to 233 million lei, from 93 million lei last year. The partial rescue came, of course, from the state budget, through subsidies of 884 million lei, which shows how dependent the company remains on government generosity.

The contrast with the triumphalist declarations of the general director Traian Preoteasa is more than delicious. In February 2025, the head of CFR Călători enthusiastically announced a profit of 15 million lei for the previous year, presented as a historic moment after a decade of losses. The "minor” detail, however, passed over in silence, is that the profit appeared only after, on December 30 or 31, 2024, a budgetary rectification pushed the compensations to 2.13 billion lei, covering about 90% of the company's requests. In other words, the accounting miracle was not the result of managerial efficiency, but of state generosity.

Today, the real figures irrefutably contradict the head of CFR Călători: debts are growing, revenues are collapsing, losses are deepening, in which conditions Preoteasa has canceled hundreds of trains and is preparing to cancel a few dozen more, and what was called "profit" has proven to be just an artifice fueled by public money. In this context, Traian Preoteasa's promise that the CFR Călători budget "will never be at a loss again" sounds more like a bitter joke, while the accounting reality shows us that the company's train is running faster and faster on the black line of deficit.