OREANDA-NEWS. January 08, 2015. A total of 9.57 million passengers passed through ports operated by the Port of Tallinn, up 3.6 percent, and a new record.

The Tallinn-Helsinki line was by far the most popular, with close to eight million traveling on the route, up 5.1 percent compared to 2013, with Stockholm (1 million people, up 2.2 percent) and St. Petersburg (150,000, down 20 percent) next. The passenger turnover for December was 720,000, down 4 percent as the weak ruble hit the tourism sector in Estonia.

Cruise ship passenger number decreased from 520,000 to 490,000 in 2014.

Tallink was the largest ferry operator with a 58 percent share, followed by Viking Line with 21 percent and Eckero Line with 14 percent of all passengers.

The state-owned Port of Tallinn is predicting only a slight increase to 9.66 million passengers in 2015, although only a 4.5 percent increase would lead it to pass the 10-million passenger figure.