Tallink Grupp reports 61 per cent drop in passenger volumes in 2020 due to Covid-19

Estonia’s Tallink Grupp has published its 2020 fourth quarter and December passenger and cargo statistics, which reveal the total impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the company’s annual passenger, vehicle and cargo transport statistics.

The year saw Tallink Grupp’s total passenger number decrease by 61.8 per cent, with the company transporting a total of 3,732,102 passengers on all its different routes during the year, compared to a total of 9,763,210 in 2019.

Passenger numbers decreased on all the company’s routes, with several of the routes suspended for long periods during the year due to travel restrictions and states of emergency. The biggest drop in the passenger numbers took place on the Latvia-Sweden route (82.5 per cent fewer passengers in 2020 compared to 2019) and on the Estonia-Sweden routes (81.9 per cent fewer passengers in 2020 compared to 2019), where regular passenger traffic was either completely or partly suspended since March 2020.

Passenger numbers on the Finland-Sweden routes also decreased in 2020 by 66.1 per cent compared to 2019 and on the Estonia-Finland routes by 52.3 per cent compared to 2019.

The number of passenger vehicles transported in 2020 decreased overall by 36.7 per cent across all the group’s routes, with the biggest drop evident again on the fully or partially suspended Latvia-Sweden and Estonia-Sweden routes.

In terms of freight, the company transported a total of 359,811 units of cargo during 2020, which is only 5.2 per cent less than during the full year 2019.

The company even managed to increase the number of cargo units transported on the Estonia-Finland routes by one per cent during the year compared to 2019, although fewer cargo was carried on all the other company routes compared to the previous year.