The number of cargo units also showed a decrease in the first quarter of this financial year compared to 2020 with a total of 85 156 units of cargo transported in the first three months of 2021, which is a 14.5% decrease compared to the same period last year.

The limited traffic that did remain in the first quarter, continued to be the busiest both on the passenger and cargo transport front between Estonia and Finland with 201 446 passengers and 57 595 units of cargo transported on the route in Q1 2021, a 76.2% decrease and a 11.0% decrease respectively compared to the same period in 2020.

Commenting on the statistics, Tallink Grupp’s CEO Paavo Nõgene said:

“This has been one of the toughest quarters in our company’s history as the whole quarter’s operations have been limited due to ongoing and newly imposed travel restrictions between our countries. When Q1 in 2020 still saw nearly normal passenger numbers in January and February, then this year, we have not had a single month in the quarter without significant travel restrictions on our routes due to the ongoing and escalated virus situation in our countries.

“Only half of our fleet (vessels STAR, MEGASTAR, SEA WIND, REGAL STAR, SAILOR, BALTIC PRINCESS and GALAXY) continues to operate at this time with the other half still suspended in ports around the Baltic Sea, waiting for the virus epidemic to pass. Our energy and efforts go into serving the people who must travel even now between the various countries for unavoidable reasons, and into moving vital goods as quickly, efficiently and safely as possible. It requires a great deal of effort in extremely challenging conditions from all our crew members and staff on the front line.

“Those of us not moving people and goods on a daily basis, are firmly focussed on making plans and preparations for the summer – however much we will be able to offer our customers during this year’s summer season due to COVID, we want to be sure we are able to offer the best and as quickly and flexibly as possible, similarly to last year. Our teams have many plans with our routes and services and we hope that we can share these with our customers in the not so distant future as things improve around us.

“At the same time, we continue to search and trial every possible solution under the sun that would enable us to return to offering our services as quickly and safely as possible and permitted, such as bringing COVID testing options on board and much more.

“We monitor the pandemic situation in all our key markets closely to inform our decision-making and to make our decisions as quickly as possible as the situations develop. Depending on the speed and extent of progress made with the vaccinations and various forms of vaccination passports considered, my hope is that we will start to see at least some levels of travelling in early summer.”