Good day everyone. This is Joonas Joost from Tallink Grupp, and welcome all to the webinar introducing the results of the fourth quarter of 2021. In addition to myself, the results will be introduced today by the CEO of the group, Mr. Paavo Nõgene, and Member of the Management Board, Margus Schults. Unfortunately, Harri Hanschmidt could not join us today. As always, it is possible also to ask questions during the webinar by writing your question in the question box on the right hand of your screen. The questions will be addressed after the presentation. Also, as we have received some questions in writing in advance of the webinar, we will be first addressing those questions, and then thereafter, we will be addressing the questions which have arrived during the webinar.
With that, I would give the word now to Paavo.
Good afternoon, everyone. It's nice that so many of you are attending this webinar today again. We have been working in pandemic or crisis situation already now more than two years. I'm happy to say that we have been able to adapt company to the new normality, which which is proved, I think, mainly if you take a look our last year second half financial result. We were able to stay in the positive side net profit. If you take into account the Tallink asset base is approximately EUR 1.6 billion, which makes amortization quite high number of euros every year.
We are kind of, like, satisfied that we were able to operate in the profit side with much less number of passengers during the 2021 second half. I believe that this should give some positive view to the investors and also to our financial partners about Tallink possibility to come out from this crisis kind of like stronger than we entered. If we are able to keep this efficiency level we have reached right now during the period when the pandemic is slowing down or will get over this year, it can have a positive impact to our results in the future.
Secondly, I'm very grateful to all these 37,334 investors we have right now, which number has been increased by 2,500 during the last quarter as well. We are very happy that during this pandemic period, we have seen that our investors number has tripled. The same time in our secondary listing in Helsinki, we have already more than 9,500 investors. If you're going back just three or four years, all the Tallink Grupp altogether had around 11,000-12,000 investors. Only in Helsinki already we're reaching this level. I'm happy to answer your questions later.
I will give this floor now to Margus Schults, who will give a more in-depth overview about the results 2021.
Good afternoon also from my side. Yes, I will guide you through the main business events, what we had in Q4 and after end of Q4. Also on this slide, we have summarized the whole 2021 because now we have the first unaudited result from the whole year. Yes, from operational side, we have still 15 vessels. We have kept them and managed to operate these vessels in the way that there was no need to sell them. We had 1 suspended route still in 2020. It was Riga-Stockholm. Out of our four hotels, also Riga Hotel was closed. The key fact for the whole year were. First, revenue was EUR 477 million, which is approximately EUR 34 million higher than year before.
We have been able to increase revenues. We served three million passengers last year, which is about quarter less than in 2020. Just a reminder that in 2020, of course, we had 2.5 good months before the crisis started. In 2021, we had a summer which was more restricted by different governments than in 2020. In spite of lesser number of passengers, the average price we earned from each passenger was higher, and therefore our revenue was also higher last year. Cargo units were stable on the level of 370,000 units. Our asset base, our vessel mainly EUR 1.6 billion.
By the end of last year, we had almost 4,800 employees, which about 500 more than a year ago due to the fact that we had more vessels now in operations. Of course, from pre-COVID times when we had 7,200 employees is significantly less. Our loyalty program, which is one of the probably largest in the region, with almost three million members, stayed stable, and as already mentioned, the number of shareholders and FT holders increased in a very nice manner. Just a reminder about status of vessels. During the second half of last year, most of our vessels we were able to operate on, so to say, normal routes, with some exceptions. Megastar and Star operated on Tallinn-Helsinki route.
Silja Europa also most of the time on Tallinn-Helsinki route, except some short-term charters in the fourth quarter. Baltic Queen operated on Tallinn-Stockholm route, and Victoria I was also, which is normal operating Tallinn-Stockholm, was chartered in the third quarter to Mediterranean. Silja Serenade and Silja Symphony operated on Helsinki-Stockholm. They didn't start exactly at the end of. In the beginning of Q3 because of the Finnish restrictions on board, but they started operations from August. Galaxy and Baltic Princess operated normally, and also our cargo vessels operated normally. We had also the two vessels from usual Stockholm-Riga route. Isabelle was inactive, and Romantika had few charters in Q3 and Q4. Of course, our Q4 operations were still impacted by waves of COVID-19 expansion.
We had very good start of Q4, actually, and we saw that there was clear increase in all our home markets towards traveling. Actually, by volumes, October and November were the second best and third best month in the whole year after July. This is quite unusual, if you compare normal year. Yes, it shows that again, when the COVID numbers go down and the restrictions are removed, then there is clearly very rapidly returning interest from customers. As we all know, then unfortunately, new COVID variant, Omicron, came into the headlines in mid-December, which again forced the governments to start to tighten the different border restrictions and other restrictions in our home markets.
The end of the quarter was not as prosperous as the beginning, but still, I would say that in these circumstances, it was okay. Like already mentioned by Paavo, we ended the second half of last year with a small profit. Yes, we mentioned already that the result was also bumped by short-term charters we had in the Q4, and also we opened three new Burger King restaurants in Lithuania during this quarter. There were also some events we want to highlight after the end of the quarter. We opened 1 new restaurant in the beginning of year in Latvia, and by that now the number of Burger King restaurants is increased to 15.
We expect to open more restaurants during this year, but the speed of opening will be less than last year. Luckily, the situation with COVID has improved and in all our home markets basically have lifted the restrictions in the first month of the year. Sweden opened already in the beginning of the year, removed all restrictions on the border, and Finland removed the border control since mid of February and will keep only the health documents control on the border until end of June. We also reached a compromise in the dispute with the Port of Tallinn a couple of weeks ago, so it ended our long-term dispute regarding the port fees.
I think that the agreement and compromise which was achieved and which content has been published on stock exchange was good enough for both parties. The construction of MyStar, our new LNG-based vessel, is continuing, but we expect that there are some smaller delays, so the operations are planned from June this year. Of course, we are continuously exploring options for chartering our vessels. Of course, we always assess this charter versus economic result what we have on our normal routes. Since there was quite a sufficient capacity on Baltic Sea already prior COVID-19, then we are very sure that for us, economically more reasonable is to find this kind of options.
As soon as we will find any new option after the option we have with Romantika, we of course inform our investors. Of course, COVID situation still is unpredictable. We don't know where it is going, but we hope that with this Omicron variant, like, many people predict, it will now be more stable. The state governmental decisions will be more predictable. There will be no so severe lockdowns or closing of borders as maybe during last two years. Like I mentioned already, we saw already during the crisis as soon as the situation improves and the restrictions are removed, then the number of passengers start to increase quite rapidly.
Especially in Estonia and Finland, where of course where most of our existing business is located, we hope that with a better immunity situation, we see the increased business during coming months coming in. Of course, it's last but not least to mention also it's not only border restrictions what we discuss, it's also the domestic restrictions like opening hours for restaurants or public events. Because psychologically when clients see that the domestic restrictions are very tight, the willingness of travel is lower even if the border is opened. Now Finland will remove all restrictions from end of this month. Sweden has already done removing all domestic restrictions.
Estonia, due to a little bit higher COVID-19 situation, has not decided the final date, but is also on the way to lifting the domestic restrictions. We see all grounds that Q2, Q3 and further will be better business for us. With that, let's go to more exact numbers, and I give the floor to Joonas.
Thank you. Thank you, Margus. Yes, this Q4, we had more vessels in operations, more trips, and also the volumes were higher. Compared to last year Q4, we had overall 12% more departures. The number of passengers was significantly more higher and exceeded 1.1 million. As explained by Margus, that yes, October and November were very strong in terms of recovery of the passenger figures. Cargo numbers and passenger car numbers also improved, but relatively less compared to the passengers. Overall, the quarterly revenues exceeded EUR 166 million. This time around, we also managed to earn gross profit of EUR 20 million. The
This result was also achieved in a situation where the fuel prices on the global scale were relatively high and increased the fuel expenses for us. Overall, the cost of sales increased 50%, which is less than the 110% revenue increase. Hence, the overall efficiency improved in annual comparison. EBITDA was EUR 25.1 million. I would highlight that this time around, the government financial support was quite limited at only EUR 1.4 million in net amount. In last year's comparison, the support in Q4 was quite high at nearly 50 million EUR, which meant that without the support, last year's EBITDA would have been on a negative side.
Although we managed to operate the second half profitably, unfortunately the Omicron variant at the end of the quarter had still some negative impact, and it did not allow us to perform net result-wise profitably in the quarter. Given the circumstances with COVID and also high fuel prices then, this result can be considered quite good. As we had more ships in operations, the capital expenditures were somewhat higher than in the last quarter of 2020. This time around, these were EUR 9.2 million.
When looking at the revenue development in terms of the operating segments, then this time around there was increase in all of the segments and with the restaurant and shop sales on board and on shore increasing the most, nearly EUR 50 million. Several aspects impacting this area, the higher proportion of operations and long-term overnight routes, but also continuously high spending by the passengers had a significant impact in this area. We also improved ticket sales. This similarly was attributable to more overnight routes operated this year compared to last year. Although the competition in the cargo market remains high, we achieved a better result than last year also in this regard. Slightly better development at hotels.
When looking at the charters, the short-term charter of Silja Europa and Romantika for 30 days during the quarter had almost EUR 10 million combined positive impact in this quarter. When we are looking at the revenue development in terms of the geographical segments or routes, the biggest impact was from the Finland-Sweden route with more than EUR 40 million better result than last year. This very much attributes to the addition of the Helsinki-Stockholm route, which was not operated last year, but also improvements on the Turku-Stockholm route. The Estonia-Finland route also had high positive development at EUR 18 million.
This was also due to somewhat more higher number of trips, but also improved number of passengers and passenger demand. On Estonia-Sweden route, we had additional operations of Baltic Queen operating on Tallinn-Stockholm route, which wasn't operational last year. Definitely positive impact from that. Other routes feature predominantly the change in the charter revenues, but also hotels and addition of Burger King restaurants. Overall, when we look at the passenger development and in the top left hand chart, then we can clearly see that in 2020, the first quarter was still resembling normal periods, second quarter being closed down with the start of the COVID.
In the summer, there was still bookings from previous times, and the summer was relatively decent, although quite lower than normal years. At the end of the year, the Q4 in 2020 was also quite weak. In 2021, the first half was clearly very weak in terms of number of passengers, but also the summer months in Q3 were negatively impacted. In Q4 with 1.1 million passengers, we clearly maintained a better result than last year. Cargo seasonality remained fairly stable, but in the fourth quarter, the result is actually even stronger than shown in the last three years, including two years pre-pandemic, 2018 and 2019.
The revenue development reflects largely also developments in the passenger volumes. Although the more stable impact from cargo and also the addition of charter revenues meant that although the passenger numbers remained lower than in 2020, the revenues turned out higher. When we're looking at the EBITDA on the bottom right, then we managed to earn more substantial results in Q3 and Q4. In Q4, EUR 25 million EBITDA is actually fairly comparable to the pre-pandemic year Q4s when you can see in 2018 and 2019, the results were EUR 24 million and EUR 33 million respectively.
In terms of the net result than actually the result in the last quarter of this year resembles fairly much the levels where the Q4 result has been also pre-pandemic years. So minus three is not that much off from the -2 million EUR result in 2018. Very briefly, in terms of the full year comparison, as Margus mentioned, we managed a 34 million EUR better result than last year while having 20% less passengers. Also in a full year perspective, we managed a positive gross result. EBITDA for the entire year, 58.3 million EUR.
This result also on the full year level would have been even positive even without the financial support, which wasn't the case last year. Overall, the net result for the full year unaudited is EUR -56.6 million. Although it is still much on the negative side, this attributes mostly to the developments in the first half of the year and is a very strong and clear improvement over the last year's EUR 108 million net loss. For the full year, the investments amounted to EUR 20 million, significantly less than the EUR 100 million last year. Just as a reminder, last year, the EUR 70 million euro of the investment attributes to the new ships, including prepayments for MyStar and also the acquisition of the cargo vessel, Sailor.
Without those investments, 2020 CAPEX was around EUR 30 million. In terms of the balance sheet items, in full year comparison, the total assets improved 4.6%, and equity slipped to EUR 693 million. The overall interest-bearing liabilities were 10%-11% higher compared to the beginning of the year. Net debt somewhat lower at EUR 652.4 million. With the end of the year, we have also disclosed the breakdown of the costs. Cost of goods sold still remains the largest cost item, cost line for us.
I'd highlight the improved efficiency here as the restaurant and bar sales increased by 2% year-over-year, while the cost of goods sold was down by 5% year-over-year. The staff expenses at EUR 86.1 million were down by EUR 20 million in annual comparison, over 26%, partly because of 2020 featured layoff expenses, but also due to the fact that the average number of employees was lower in 2021 compared to 2020. The fuel expenses due to the hike in the global fuel prices was higher by 28% or EUR 16 million compared to the last year. In the fourth quarter, the operating cash flows were positive at EUR 28 million.
This fact, together with the capital raise in the previous quarter, helped us to reduce the outstanding overdraft balances during the quarter, which is reflected in the debt financing line. Overall, due to the EUR 30 million repayment of the debt financing, the change in cash during the quarter was negative by EUR 16 million. As mentioned before, at the end of the year, the total assets amounted to EUR 1.6 billion or EUR 1,586 million, of which EUR 128 million was cash. The total interest-bearing liabilities were EUR 780 million, which includes both the bank debt and also right of use liabilities.
The key financial ratios improved by the end of the year, but the net debt EBITDA at 11.2 times is still fairly high number. Again, I would highlight here that the EBITDA in the first half of the year was and also in the summer was actually quite poor and heavily impacted by the COVID situation. The equity ratio improvement to 44% compared to the start of the quarter is due to repayment of the outstanding overdraft balances. At the end of the year, together with the overdraft balances and the available cash at hand, the total liquidity amounted to EUR 262 million. Very lastly, we'll not stop too long here. There were no big changes in the debt structure.
As mentioned, only the repayment of the overdraft facilities during the quarter were the main changes. I would highlight here that the principal until the end of the first quarter of 2022. These were the results of the fourth quarter this year. Now we would proceed to the questions and answers, and we would start firstly with the questions that was sent us prior to the webinar. The first question is in the plans for the company to invest more in ro-ro ships and add more destinations between Baltics to Scandinavian countries, even more far destinations like Germany, for example?
Yes. Thank you for the question. No, we don't have plans to expand right now the fleet beyond the MyStar. We work to restore our current operations, and we try to increase the efficiency on the routes. Right now, we don't have a plan to buy more vessels. Germany is a quite long route. It's always tricky to make it a profitable basis. Right now, to take a look at the fuel prices, then it's even more difficult. We keep our current business model and working with our current routes.
Thank you. Will there be in this summer any short-term time charter agreement with the Moroccan state-owned company for any of the available ships?
We're working with different requests actually, and there are many different visitors visiting our vessels to try to find out if it is possible to charter them. Right now, we currently have the contract with Romantika, which is going to be chartered on the twenty-second of March, so it's one month to go. We'll start operations between the Netherlands and Norway. Currently, we haven't signed any more charter agreements, but we work with it because if we are able to reach good financial conditions to charter out the vessels, we definitely calculate which is better for the company to charter out the vessel or use the vessel ourselves. We're chartering out the vessels only if it's profitable.
We are not chartering out the vessels just to reach the zero level. This is not the case with us. If we see there are possible to lower the risks and earn the profit at same time, we see that we don't have enough profitable or enough good profitable route for our vessel, then we are happy to charter out. We will let all the investors know about these deals via the stock exchange releases.
Thank you. Next question. What are the plans with the ship Star? Has the new LNG ship MyStar will replace the vessel on the Tallinn-Helsinki route?
Actually, I answered this as well with the previous answer. There are interest for the Star. We have visitors. We will see where we end up. If we don't reach enough good charter agreement, we have our own ideas for Star. Star definitely will have work this summer. We'll see is it charter or it's something else, but we will let the investors know.
Thank you. The next question. To my understanding, all travel restrictions have been lifted in Sweden and Finland. Is there any travel recommendation in Finland that still stops Finnish people from coming to Estonia? Or are Finnish travelers deterred by the Estonian COVID restrictions?
I think it's more like general question that it takes a bit time to recover from such kind crisis. Low season has been with low passenger numbers always. If we take into account that, yes, there are still some restrictions. Example, if someone coming to Tallinn for weekend and staying in the hotel and from lobby bar or restaurant, these people need to leave at eleven o'clock in the evening, even if the same people going just to stay in the same hotel. These kind of restrictions of course having some impact. Same time, the Omicron wave is not over yet, and some people just don't want to travel yet.
If you take a look also out from the window, let's say that, when the sunshine coming and spring starting to come out from this winter, we believe that people are more active to travel as well. Same time, we are currently quite happy already about the passenger numbers between the Helsinki-Stockholm right now with one vessel operations. We see also good passenger numbers on Tallinn-Stockholm, which we just started last weekend, again with one vessel. Numbers are growing, and I think that it's more important right now that we are much more efficient. Even if these smaller numbers of passengers, we are able to operate not much worse than before the crisis.
As Joonas mentioned, the fourth quarter EBITDA level was actually quite similar for 2018 or a bit lower compared to 2019.
Thank you. Next question. Please give us an update on the latest you've heard about lifting Estonian restrictions.
The update is always changing. The main issue why the restrictions are still in place is that we have in the hospitals more than 600 people, and this is quite big number compared with this how many people living in Estonia. The government waiting until this number is going down a bit, and then they has promised they will reduce also the restrictions. I personally, if I take a look other countries how this Omicron wave have been in last 8 weeks, then I think that we will see better situation on second or third week of March.
By end of March, most probably all the restrictions in Estonia are gone if there are not coming up any new type of virus. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Let's keep our fingers crossed. Next question. If there are no restrictions in any of your home markets during this year's summer high season, what is your best guess regarding the passenger recovery during the summer high season? Would it be close to pre-pandemic levels or still far below pre-pandemic level?
It definitely will be below the pre-pandemic level, and there are many reasons. First of all, on some routes we are operating with one vessel only. We are just going to open the Riga-Stockholm with one vessel. We're still operating Tallinn-Stockholm with one vessel. We have been operating three months Helsinki-Stockholm with one vessel if you take from January until end of March. Silja Europa is out of service almost three months, and so on. It's not going to be pre-pandemic numbers during this year. Maybe it's not also so important that we reach the pre-pandemic passenger numbers already this year. I think it's more important that we operate as efficient as possible to reach as good as possible net profit during this year.
I believe that in the future, Tallink not needing 9.7 million passengers to reach, example, EUR 50 million net profit. The management aim is to keep efficiency and reach that level with lower number of passengers as well. At same time, the problem is, of course, the intercontinental travel. If you go back to 2019, Tallink had every day 1,000 Chinese passengers on board, 350,000 passengers a year. This takes also time and depends a lot how, example, Finnair is recovering, who need to bring these passengers to Europe. I personally hope that we reach at least 5 million passengers level this year. I hope I'm wrong and we reach also more.
Let's see how the spring and summer goes, and actually what happens in August or September. Are we able to operate normal or the virus will play his game again and we need to adapt our businesses again? Let's hope that at least this COVID will disappear this year. Okay, it's not disappearing, but we need to adapt to live with this virus for future. Let's hope that there are not so many restrictions coming up by end of the year.
Thank you. What is your strategy regarding special cruises this year? How many do you plan for? Do you plan for any special day cruises to Mariehamn this summer? If so, how many?
Yes, actually, we're already selling them, so everyone are welcome to buy the tickets. We have special cruises with Silja Europa vessel this summer, and we're going every Sunday to Visby in July and beginning of August. We also have two special cruises with Silja Europa to Mariehamn. If we see that there are more demand, we are happy to increase the special cruises numbers. But these are right now the cruises we are already selling in our system. Please feel free to buy the tickets.
Thank you. Do you expect all your vessels to be in full traffic this spring? If so, when?
We hope that all our vessels will be in traffic. The question is that are they in traffic in our routes or we are able to charter out more than Romantika, beside Romantika. Yes, we have planned right now that Isabelle will start operation April 6 between the Riga-Stockholm, and Victoria I will join April 14 Tallinn-Stockholm. As I said, we're working same time with the charter possibilities as well. Most probably the answer is yes, all the vessels are in traffic.
Thank you. Next question. The past two years, even during high season and without restrictions, the passenger and vehicle amount has been 10%-50% lower compared to a normal year. What is your forecast for this year?
Actually, I can't agree that the passenger and vehicle amount has been 10%-50% lower. It depends a lot on the route. It's difficult to predict where we end up the year. Most important is right now to try to keep the prices and operate as efficient as possible. I hope that we have shown the last months that we are able to do it during also very tricky times and very difficult pandemic period.
Okay, the next question. What does the booking situation look like compared to the same time a year ago? How much have the bookings increased recently? Are the cruises more in demand in summer compared to winter?
Of course, the summer cruises are more demanded than the winter cruises. That's definitely for sure. Actually, the mindset has been changed quite a lot during this crisis. Of course, we have a lot of bookings already in our system for the summer period. Same time, we see that the bookings coming in very last minute. It's not very surprising to us if even today there are 500-1,000 tickets sold for the same day departures. Of course, shuttle service is a big part of it. We also see that for the cruises, people making the decisions in the very last moment.
Somehow we understand it because people want to be sure that they can travel, they are healthy, they want to be sure that governments are not putting some restrictions, which starting from tomorrow and so on. Mindset is changed and people are buying the tickets late. Yes, already now we have quite a nice number of bookings in our system for the summer. For sure the more bookings coming when really the season starts and weather is also better for the cruises, especially for the summer cruises.
Thank you. Next question. How will the marketing activities in 2022 compare to the previous year? Are you planning any new activities and directions?
This I can call, like, business secret, how they market our products, so not going too deep into it. We have. Again, I believe that we have shown that also with the much more limited marketing budget, we have been reaching some levels which are comparable already with 2018 or 2019. Let's keep this our business secret, how they market our products. I hope that. Of course, marketing is always changing and depending on the situation and in different routes, there are different strategies. We take a serious look at our competitors as well, so we try to find a good balance between everything.
Main goal is to have enough passengers on board to operate profitably.
Have you seen any changes in the activity of the Finnish customers?
Yes. In last weeks, we have seen that Finnish customers are more on board and coming to cruise between the Finland, Sweden, and also already coming to Estonia. Yes, we believe and we are positive-minded that Finns also coming more already to enjoy because everyone are tired of this crisis which has been already more than two years. Everyone are very welcome on board our vessels.
Thank you. Next question. Could you please provide an estimate of the financial impact of the agreement reached with Tallinna Sadam?
It's a tricky question. There are so many different aspects, because port dues depend on how big vessel coming into the port and leaving the port. How many times vessel visiting the port. How much you have passengers on port. So on, so on, so on. I can say this that, as the Port of Tallinn has announced in their stock exchange release, that they think or they believe their loss will be around EUR 2 million compared last year results. This last year result is very important part of here. If you take into account this estimate, we are estimating which vessels we're operating this year, how many times vessels visiting the port.
One very important fact that MyStar having the bigger gross tonnage than Star, gross tonnage is actually one of the biggest part of the port dues we need to pay. If you take into account that the vessel is around 14,000 GT bigger compared with Star, then we believe that this number is between EUR 2 million and EUR 3 million per year. This contract is signed for 10-year period. As I said, Tallinna Sadam or Port of Tallinn hasn't said anything wrong, just they calculated based off last year numbers.
When we was negotiating this compromise, we was calculating it from our point of view and also the fact that MyStar having the gross tonnage over 50,000, Star is 46,000 around. All these numbers together brings us to higher number.
Thank you. How does the arrival of MyStar affect your loan governance at the group level? Do you plan to negotiate for the extension of covenant waivers that should end as of Q1, this year?
No, we are not planning to negotiate the extension because last time we negotiated with our partners the loan agreements and extensions or waivers, the MyStar financial partner was part of this deal we achieved. Our aim is to pay back the loans in second quarter as it is agreed, and there are no upcoming negotiations regarding the MyStar arrival.
Thank you. The next question, when will you share the Burger King sales and financials? Currently the Burger King is included in the consolidated results and the level of the financial results is still at low levels, relative to the group and not exceeding the thresholds of significance. The next question, I think it's three questions, and actually there may be more questions within the questions, but let's start. Can you disclose the number of departures you had during 2021? I'm not sure if this is disclosed or not disclosed yet in the results, but I think at latest this info is published in the audited annual report.
Second question, how are you dealing with getting the personnel level up now that the active business season is approaching again? If you compare the wage level and similar positions pre-COVID and for the same positions today, how significant wage inflation are you witnessing today?
Yes. Actually, we started a campaign to hire up to 500 people in Estonia and the campaign to hire the people also in Latvia and Sweden for the active business season. We Tallink is in good position because first of all, our average salary on board of vessels are normally higher than inland organizations in different countries. Also the working period or schedule of work is for example in Estonia, you are two weeks on board and two weeks off, which allows us to hire the people also outside from Tallinn. Actually, more than half of the people working in Tallink Estonia are from outside of Tallinn. People don't need to have the place to live in same city where the vessel departs.
When we announced yesterday just that we are hiring up to 500 people to work in Estonian organization on board of vessels, already today we have close to 300 CVs. We actually don't see very big problem. As I said, just the wage level is on average higher than on land organizations as for the same kind of work. We believe that it's not very big problem.
Thank you. Any plans to fix the fuel price or still investigating the market?
Right now we are, we haven't fixed. The market is very volatile, and we remember well what happened 2020, beginning of 2020 when we had quite big amount price fixed. When the crash came, it was quite difficult to find the ways how to cancel these contracts this way that it will be beneficial to our investors. We right now have made a decision that we take a look how the market change in the coming months. Just right now we're buying from the market with market price. Joonas, I think that you missed one question. You will resume loan principal payments for Q2. What is the total amount to be paid this year? I think this is question to you.
Yes, that was the next question. Yes, we will resume a loan principal payments starting from Q2. Typically, we haven't disclosed the repayment schedule. But overall, the annual level of the debt burden or the debt service prior to the COVID has been around EUR 80 million per year. With, we look to resume basically overall to the same level. But with the debt burden being somewhat higher and there have been somewhat more delays than overall, it will be. It's expected to be a bit higher than that amount. The next question. Hello. Thanks for all this information.
What is the plans of the company in case we see prices of oil barrel in more high levels? I would like to ask if the ships Megastar and MyStar are dual fuel ships.
Yes. Megastar and MyStar are both the dual fuel ships. We use this opportunity to balance the different prices. Right now, even the Megastar operating partly with diesel and mainly with LNG. I think it was 30/70 percentage wise. We take a look how the market situation is. We have changed actually also schedule for our vessels long routes. For example, Helsinki-Stockholm route, we added half an hour. Such kind small things we doing.
Thank you. As we are fast approaching one-hour mark, there's the last question. Cargo units result looks very strong in December and Q4. Do you expect cargo units to decrease when more passengers restart traveling?
We are quite happy about the cargo improvements right now. If you take a look, we also sent to the stock January numbers, and you can see that cargo numbers increasing. We hope to keep this. Of course, a lot depends what's happening in the import and export markets. Right now the cargo doing quite well, and we don't see right now the reasons the units number should decrease.
Thank you. With that, we've exhausted one hour in what I think in good way. Thank you everyone, for your interest and for your questions. We'll meet again after the next quarter's results.