Tallink Group transported 496,090 passengers in April, down from the 550,317 transported in April 2007. On the Finland-Sweden route, Tallink suffered a dramatic fall of 27 percent, on the Latvia-Sweden route a 7.2 percent decrease, and Estonia-Sweden was down 0.3 percent. Tallink has found a suitable excuse; the decline was due to the effects of the Easter holidays, it said, which last year were in April but this year were in March. The number of passengers on Finland-Germany grew by 12.4 percent, on Estonia-Finland by 8.9 percent.