Tallink has not yet reached its pre-Covid annual passenger levels yet, Postimees says (link in Estonian) even as 2022's figure of 5.5 million was an advance on the preceding two years, while the changed security situation and the decommissioning of older vessels meant Tallink was operating six fewer ships in the last quarter of 2022.

Covid hit shipping lines particularly heavily and passenger numbers still have not recovered – in 2022 these were still 44 percent lower than the 9.76 million posted in 20219, while the drop in numbers for Tallink competitor Viking Line stood at 21 percent (to a little under 5 million), while for Eckerö, pre-pandemic figures have nearly been reached, albeit with smaller numbers of passengers (1.89 million in 2019).

Viking said 2022 had been "eventful", with new vessels brought on to routes, though the full financials for all three lines for last year still need to be published.

By passenger growth numbers, Viking (up 114 percent) and Eckerö (113 percent) saw a greater improvement that Tallink (up by 84 percent), while the latter's market share of 56.3 percent in 2020 represented the last year in which it had an absolute majority share – by 2022 this had fallen to 44.6 percent, compared with 40.4 percent for Viking and 15 percent for Eckerö, and while Tallink remains the largest player overall, it las lost 10 percent of its share over the past decade, compared with 8 percent growth for Eckerö, and no significant change for Viking.

The original Postimees article (in Estonian) is here.

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