Helsinki–Tallinn: Inside Europe's Busiest Ferry Route as It Goes Hybrid

Roughly 7.5 million passengers crossed between Helsinki and Tallinn in 2025 — making the short hop across the Gulf of Finland the busiest ferry route in Europe, served by around 88 sailings a week from three operators: Tallink Silja Line, Viking Line and Eckerö Line.

The route has been getting cleaner in 2026. Eckerö Line's MS Finlandia went through an Easter refit this year that added batteries on deck 9 — a hybrid upgrade for a ferry that's sailed the route since 2000. Tallink's newer MyStar, in service since December 2022, already runs on an electric propulsion system paired with dual-fuel LNG engines, plugs into shore power in port instead of idling on generators, and by January 2026 was running 74% on liquefied biomethane rather than conventional LNG — with Tallink aiming to phase out fossil LNG on the route entirely.

All of that traffic passes through Helsinki's Olympia Terminal, the same passenger port built for the 1952 Summer Olympics that appears in TravelHub's own Helsinki Port walk — still, more than seventy years later, one of the busiest working ferry terminals on the Baltic.