Flights to foreign destinations are limited from St. Petersburg Airport. VR hopes Russian travellers will use the new rail link to take advantage of Helsinki-Vantaa’s flight services.
“Currently the journey between the two cities takes six hours but the new Allegro service will reduce the journey time by almost half,” says VR’s Passenger Traffic Director Antti Jaatinen.
Jaatinen adds both VR and Russian rail operators aim for a threefold increase in passenger numbers over the next decade to around 700,000 annually.
Feeding VR’s optimism is the projected completion, in 2014, of a direct rail link to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport from the capital.
The Finnish Transport Agency also has a long-term vision, whereby passengers from Russia travelling from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport might check-in to their flights at St. Petersburg and be conveyed directly to security control with baggage going its own way to the plane.