Stena Line has continued to sail during the entire pandemic and on the Karlskrona-Gdynia route there are a total of about 40 departures every week with the three ferries STENA VISION, STENA SPIRIT and STENA NORDICA. During the past year, the company's main focus has been to maintain the important freight traffic to and from Karlskrona. Over the past six months, freight traffic on the Polish line has exceeded the company's expectations.

“Shipping is our main source of revenue, especially during the pandemic. Therefore, it is gratifying that freight traffic exceeds our expectations and has done so over the past six months. The reason is that industries and production are booming to catch up with shutdowns in Europe during earlier parts of the pandemic”, says Carl Mårtensson, Press Manager at Stena Line.

The number of passengers travelling on Stena Line's ferries has more than halved in the past year. This is partly due to travel restrictions, and partly because the shipping company has reduced the number of passengers on board for safety and infection control reasons to, among other things, ensure social distancing.

“Karlskrona-Gdynia has done better than many others of our 17 ferry lines in Europe. There is a lot of natural and necessary travel here, for example work, studies and meeting relatives on the other side of the Baltic Sea. But now we also see a welcome brightening for tourism”, says Carl Mårtensson.

Optimistic for this summer's high season

The number of passenger bookings has increased recently and this applies both to travel now and during the summer high season. During the month of April, the increase in so-called cruise guests from Sweden was more than 500%, albeit from low levels. The bookings for May show that interest continues.

“A cruise involves a journey of 24 hours without landing in Poland and the main reason for travel is to shop, eat and drink on board. It can also be seen in our sales figures as the amount that each traveller spends on board is higher than usual”, says Carl Mårtensson.

Summer means high season for Stena Line's passenger traffic and approximately half of all passengers travel during the three summer months of June, July, August.

We are optimistic about this summer's high season and it is clear that we share the optimism with our customers. It will probably not be like a normal summer but much better than 2020. Due to the pandemic situation, there are of course many who are waiting, but we see that bookings for July in particular are starting to pick up speed and that it is mainly our flexible tickets that are increasing. You simply want to be able to change your travel plans in the short term if the situation in society changes, says Carl Mårtensson.