The number of ship passengers travelling through Helsinki between January and March clearly increased from the same period in the previous year, during which the pandemic continued to have a strong impact on tourism. Cargo traffic was hindered early in the year by a strike in the stevedoring sector.
“From January to March, the amount of ship traffic between Tallinn and Helsinki nearly returned to the pre-pandemic level. The number of passengers on the Stockholm route is also comparable to that of 2019 when we factor in that the route now features three ships, whereas the pre-pandemic number was four,” comments Port of Helsinki’s VP Passenger Services Kaj Takolander.
“At least for the time being, our expectations for the summer are optimistic.”
The liner traffic of the Port of Helsinki had 1,606,000 passengers between January and March, marking a 58% increase from the previous year.
As expected, the busiest ship route was that between Helsinki and Tallinn, used by 1,287,000 passengers between January and March. The second-busiest route, to Stockholm, had nearly 281,000 passengers.
Stevedore strike impacting cargo traffic numbers
The two-week stevedore strike at the turn of February and March had an impact particularly on container traffic numbers early in the year.
In January–March, the total cargo traffic via the Port of Helsinki amounted to 3.5 million tonnes, which is 3.9% less than in the same period in the previous year. 1.6 million tonnes of it was in import (-3.9%) and 1.8 million tonnes in export (-4.6%).
The amount of unitized cargo traffic* was 2.9 million tonnes (-6.2%). Measured in tonnes, container traffic decreased by 13.9% from the previous year, while rubber-wheeled traffic** decreased less, by 2.7%.
* Most of the goods transported via the Port of Helsinki are unitised cargo for Finland’s foreign trade, i.e. cargo transported in containers, trucks and trailers.
** Rubber-wheeled traffic = goods transported in trucks and trailers.
More information:
Port of Helsinki Traffic Statistics January–March 2023
email: mediadesk(at)portofhelsinki.fi
media telephone during office hours: +358 40 506 5280
Cargo figures (with bold text) corrected 20 April. Due to problems in the statistic system, several cargo loads from March were not taken into account. The January- March 2023 statistics chart is also updated.
