Tallinn expects 16,000 turnaround tourists

This year’s turnaround season in the port and airport of Tallinn is expected to see 16 000 tourists switch from planes to cruise ships and vice versa in the Estonian capital.

In turnaround tourism Tallinn has a huge competition advantage in the proximity of the airport and the port to the city’s biggest attraction – the medieval Old Town, as well as competitive prices, Port of Tallinn and airport operator Tallinna Lennujaam said.

For the second consecutive summer customers of the Spanish cruise operator Pullmantur will start and end their trips in Tallinn.

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Japanies acquire Latvian port operator

Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co, Ltd has acquired an 80% share in the Latvian port operator SIA Rigas Universalais Terminals (RUT), reported news2biz LATVIA.

The sale was carried out through Mitsui’s subsidiary Portek International Pte, and the sum of the deal reached EUR 21m.

RUT is a multi-purpose terminal operating at the Freeport of Riga, which is the busiest port in Latvia. In particular, Mitsui stresses that the port accounts for 70% of Latvian exports of wood products, such as lumber, furniture, wood pellets and wood chips; timber traditionally is the strongest Latvian export.

Mitsui sees Latvia and Riga as a springboard to the Eastern European market. Latvia has railway connections to Russia and Belarus and, through them, to CIS countries such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

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Estonian Air to get 40 MEUR for bailout

The Estonian government announced yesterday that it had approved Estonian Air’s restructuring plan and planned to give the airline a 40.7-million-euro bailout, reports Äripäev.

Most of the money would be used by Estonian Air to pay back earlier government loans with interest. Before giving the money to the airline, the government must request permission from the European Commission.

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Tallinn receives 328 cruise ship visits this year

The berthing of the cruise ship Astor in Tallinn’s Old City Harbour this week will officially kick off the summer cruise season with a total of 328 ship visits scheduled. On the busiest days of the summer season, which lasts until September, up to 9 000 cruise passengers a day are expected to arrive in Tallinn, the state-owned Port of Tallinn told BNS reporter.

“During the beginning of the summer cruise season one to six cruise boats will dock in Old City Harbour almost every day and in the middle of summer up to 9 000 cruise passengers will be visiting Tallinn on the busiest days,” head of the port company’s marketing and communications department Sirle Arro told BNS.

Ten cruise ships will call at Tallinn for the first time during the start of the season. The Spanish cruise operator Pullmantur will this year again organise five turnaround cruises with Tallinn as the starting and ending point of Baltic Sea cruises. “In addition to those, there will be a partial turnaround cruise of the German ship Deutschland with some of the passengers beginning and others ending the cruise in Tallinn,” Arro said.

The longest ship to put in at Tallinn this year is the 317-meter Celebrity Eclipse with more than 2 800 passengers on board, whereas the 311-meter Adventure of the Seas will bring the most tourists, over 3 000, to the Estonian capital.

The summer cruise season runs until 26 September but cruise tourists are also expected to arrive in Tallinn in October, November and December. All told, approximately 485 000 cruise passengers will visit Tallinn this year on board 328 ships, the highest number ever, Port of Tallinn said. Last year Port of Tallinn served 440 000 cruise tourists on board 294 ships.

Source: Estonian Review

Tallink buys M/S Isabella from Viking Line

Hansalink Limited, subsidiary of the listed Estonian shipper AS Tallink Grupp, on Monday completed the transaction of purchase of the cruise ferry Isabella from the Finnish shipper Viking Line ABP.

The newer vessel with more passenger and car capacity will replace M/S Silja Festival on the Riga-Stockholm route to meet increased demand on that route. The ship will start service out of Riga under a new name, Isabelle, in the second week of May, Tallink told the stock exchange. According to information released earlier, Tallink Grupp invested approximately 30 million euros in the purchase of the vessel.

The Isabella operated the Turku-Stockholm route until the Viking Grace replaced it in January 2013. Since then, the Isabella replaced M/S Amorella for a few weeks when Amorella was in dock, while lately the Isabella has been in Turku waiting to be docked.

The Isabella was bought by the Tallink Grupp subsidiary Hansalink Limited, which previously was the owner of the Tallink AutoExpress 2. After the sale of AutoExpress 2 the Cypriot- registered company has had no economic activity. The AutoExpress 2 now plies the route to the Caribbean island of Margarita, Venezuela.

Source: Estonian Review

City of Tallinn sues government over street repair

Tallinn City Government has gone to court, seeking to annul the government regulation on distribution of funds for maintenance of local streets and roads void, reports ERR.

“The law requires that the state allocates 75% of the fuel excise duty proceeds for street repair, but the government hands to local governments less than 10 percent,” said Deputy Mayor of Tallinn Kalle Klandorf, adding that Tallinn should spend between EUR 30m and 35m a year for at least five years.

The government has accused the City of Tallinn of wasting its funds on maintaining free public transport system and creating a 20 million euro hole in its budget.

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Completion of new Muuga container terminal delayed by a year

Port of Tallinn this week decided to extend the completion deadline of the new container terminal in Muuga by 12 months until July 2014, acting on the application of developer Rail Garant Estonia.

Transiidikeskuse AS board chairman Erik Laidvee said that the company is holding talks to acquire Rail Garant Estonia OÜ. After completing the purchase, Transiidikeskuse plans to build the Muuga port extension. One of Russia’s biggest logistics companies, Rail Garant Grupp, will continue operating its container transit via the Muuga terminal.

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Hansabuss to cancel its Tallinn-Riga coach line

Estonian passenger bus operator AS Hansabuss has decided to close ing its Hansabuss Business Line coach service, linking Riga and Tallinn.

The route has been in operation from 2007 and altogether the company has carried more than 105,000 passengers on the route during its entire run. As the name suggests, it was aimed at business travellers and sported features such as comfortable chairs, desks and wireless Internet.

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Lithuania being investigated for cutting Latvian link

The European Commission has launched formal antitrust proceedings against the Lithuanian state-owned railway company Lietuvos gelezinkeliai (LG) for removing a rail link between Latvia and Lithuania, reported news2biz LITHUANIA.

In late 2008, Lietuvos gelezinkeliai dismantled the Lithuanian leg of the rail tracks connecting Renge station in Latvia to Mazeikiai in Lithuania, following an order from the Lithuanian government. It claimed that the track was in bad condition and could cause an accident. It has not reopened the route since.

Both Orlen ( a Polish-owned oil refinery) and Latvian state-owned rail company Latvijas Dzelzcels complain that Lithuania’s move is aimed at protecting its own transport companies at the expense of their competitors.

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Disrepair of Tallinn streets worsens

The main reason why motorists and pedestrians in Tallinn find it increasingly difficult to move about in the winter without damaging their vehicles or harming themselves is that over the year Tallinn City Government has deliberately been allocating less money for repairing streets, writes Postimees.

While this year City of Tallinn plans to spend around 3.5% of the city’s annual budget on road repair and maintenance, the figure in 2012 was almost 4%.

In other words, the city will spend just EUR 15m on street repair this year, while last year’s figure was almost 17m.

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