Some recovery for passenger traffic

Passenger traffic at sea increased by 21 percent in 2021 compared with the bottom year 2020 - from 12.8 to 15.5 million passengers. This according to new statistics from Traffic Analysis.

“We see that passenger traffic by ship shows a certain recovery in 2021 but is still far from the levels that prevailed before the pandemic”, says Henrik Petterson, project manager at Traffic Analysis in a press release.

The number of arriving and departing passengers to and from Swedish ports, excluding visiting cruise passengers, decreased from 30.5 million in 2019 to 14.0 million in 2020 to increase slightly to 17.0 million in 2021. At least since 2012, the number has remained stable about 30 million, states Traffic Analysis.

“For cargo handling in Swedish ports, no significant impact is seen on the total level either in 2020 or 2021, even though it may look different for different types of cargo”, says Henrik Petterson.

The sum of all cargo and unloaded goods in Swedish ports, in sea-going sea traffic, increased by a marginal 0.4 percent between 2020 and 2021, to a total of 168.2 million tonnes. The unloaded goods decreased by 3 percent from the previous year, to 88.8 million tonnes, while the loaded goods instead increased by 4 percent, to 79.4 million tonnes in 2021.

Foreign goods unloaded in Swedish ports from foreign ports decreased again, from 79.0 to 77.2 million tonnes.

In domestic traffic, between Swedish ports, the amount of goods decreased again this year and by about the same amount as the year before. In 2020, it decreased by 0.9 million tonnes, to a total of 23.6 million tonnes. In 2021, the amount of goods unloaded and loaded totaled 22.8 million tonnes.

Sweden's largest freight port is Gothenburg with over half of all containerized goods handled in tonnes. The total amount of goods handled via the quay in the ports of Gothenburg amounted to 36.8 million tonnes in 2021, which corresponds to 22 percent of the total amount of goods in the ports of Sweden. Of the 36.8 million, 94 percent was handled in foreign traffic according to Traffic Analysis.

To the report (in Swedish)