In my old age I am becoming less adventurous when it comes to public transport, but I greatly appreciate the rail infrastructure in most European capitals and try to use metro systems when I can. In Helsinki, traveling via train between Helsinki-Vantaa Airport and the city center is safe, clean, quick, and inexpensive.
Helsinki Airport Train Guide – Traveling Via Train From Helsinki Airport To City Center
It was a very cold and snowy day in Helsinki. After landing on Finnair from Copenhagen, I followed the signs to the train station.
Helsinki Airport Station
Helsinki Airport has modernized quite a bit over the last few years, and now features a beautiful new terminal and with it, a new shortcut to get to the rail station. During my two prior trips to Helsinki, including one right before the pandemic, I recall a very long walk through Termianl 1 to get to the train station.
Not so this time. Now the walk itself was short, but then quite deep…it felt like I was descending into the center of the earth.
Ticket Prices
You will need to purchase an ABC zone ticket (which covers the zones from the airport to the city center) to get into town. Ticket prices are very reasonable:
- Adult – €4.10
- Child (7-17) – €2.10
- Child (Aged 0-6) – Free of Charge
If you are unsure of how to use the machine, there will be friendly people in vests at the airport station who speak perfect English and can help you purchase the right fare or direct you to the correct train.
I Train Or P Train? Both Will Get You To City Center
Picture two tracks making a big circle. One train goes in one direction, the other goes in the opposite direction, but both stop at Helsinki Central Station.
My rule of thumb is just to take the first train that comes, though the P Train is a bit faster.
- P Train – 28 Minutes from HEL to City Center
- Helsinki – Tikkurila – Airport – Myyrmäki – Helsinki
- I Train – 33 Minutes from HEL to City Center
- Helsinki – Myyrmäki – Airport – Tikkurila – Helsinki
Onboard
Trains are clean and here is room to store your bag. Wi-Fi is complimentary. Do purchase a ticket even though there are no turnstiles or formal checks when boarding. Fare inspectors may pop up and if you do not have a valid ticket you will be hit with a fare evasion fine of €80…plus the cost of your ticket. Just buy the ticket.
Helsinki Central Station
You’ll arrive at beautiful Helsinki Central Station, designed by Eliel Saarinen and completed in 1919.
Note the flags – flown in solidarity of Ukraine after the Russian invasion.
From there, I walked to my hotel about a kilometer away. I probably could have connected by bus or tram, but the sun had peaked out from behind the clouds (for a brief period) and I enjoyed the (frigid) fresh air.
CONCLUSION
I find public transport between the airport and city center very much worthwhile in Helsinki. It is reasonable and easy to use, clean and fast.
With a very early return flight, I took Uber back, but had my flight been just a bit later I would have used the rain once again, even on a morning that was well below freezing.
My original Helsinki Airport train guide from early 2020 appears below.
I suppose this is more of a shoutout than a guide, but I used the train to travel between Helsinki Airport and the city center and it could not have been a smoother journey. Do consider public transport during your next trip to Helsinki.
Helsinki Train Guide: Airport To City Center
The signs point you to the way. Although quite a walk from Terminal 2, you won’t get lost if you follow the signs marked “Railway Station” (English signage is universal).
Eventually, you’ll come to two blue walls, one with a stylized image of a train and the other with a large arrow pointing right.
You’ll proceed down a steep escalator before coming to another hallway. Just follow the arrows and keep right.
Finally, you’ll reach one more escalator to take you down to the train platform.
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Word to the wise: there are elevators available as well if you are traveling with large bags or heavy luggage.
On the station platform, you’ll find a ticket machine. You can pay by credit card and the price from the airport to city center is €4.10.
You have two choices on the Ring Rail Line: I trains run counter-clockwise while P trains run clockwise in a loop that resembles a heart:
Both will get you to the city center (Heisingfors stations). The P-train takes 28 minutes while the I-train takes 33 minutes. Trains run every 10-20 minutes, so just hop on the one that arrives first.
Here’s the schedule:
- Every 10 minutes
- Monday-Friday 9:00AM – 7:00PM, Saturday 9:00AM – 4:00PM
- Every 15 minutes
- Monday-Friday 7:00PM – 10:00PM, Saturday 7:00AM – 9:00AM and 7:00PM – 10:00PM, Sunday 10:00AM – 10:00PM
- Every 20 minutes
- Monday-Friday 4:00AM – 6:00AM and 10:00PM – midnight, Saturday 5:00AM – 7:00AM and 10:00PM – midnight, Sunday 5:00AM – 10:00AM and 10PM – midnight.
Note you’ll be traveling on the honor system, but fare inspectors may show up at anytime (as they did on my train). Be sure to validate your ticket onboard.
I wouldn’t call the seats comfortable, but they were clean and everyone seemed to clean up after themselves. No power plugs or wi-fi onboard, but my phone had a full signal for the duration of the journey.
I arrived to a brisk afternoon day in Helsinki.
The following morning I took the train back to the airport and experienced no issues. The airport return departs from track #2.
CONCLUSION
The airport train in Helsinki was smooth, clean, cheap, and reliable. I would not hesitate to use it again, especially when traveling solo.
Interesting that everything on the signs, and even the printed receipt, is translated into Swedish. I’ve never been to Finland, are there that many Swedish speakers there?
Swedish is historically by far the most-spoken second language in Sweden as Finland was for a long time ruled as part of Sweden. During that time many Swedish families including mine migrated to present day Finland and there developed a Swede-finn culture on the islands between the two countries in particular.
Very interesting, thanks! I knew people spoke primarily Swedish in Åland but had no idea it was so pervasive, or even spoken, in mainland Finland. Swedes notice my accent when speaking Swedish right away, but maybe it would be less noticeable in Helsinki. It looks like there is still an internal border control with Sweden, so sadly no chance for us visiting Finland until the ban is lifted.
It’s no longer pervasive except for in some coastal areas.
If I were to go shopping once a week, I would probably hear Swedish being spoken once or twice in the year.
Many places where I felt I could speak Swedish when I first arrived in 1989 are no longer “safe” in the sense that the sentence will be understood and the reply will come in Swedish. So unless it is very clear that the person is Swedish-speaking I will nowadays always speak Finnish.
(Location: South Finland to the west of Helsinki – but not far to the west)
It’s an official language.
I assume this trip wasn’t recent? It seems like too many people on the platform for this to have been during the pandemic. I took the Arlanda Express last month (which looks very similar to this train btw), and there was only 1 other passenger on the entire train (the train holds almost 200 people). It was surreal.
February 2020.
The HSL app makes buying a ticket even easier both for the airport trains and travel around Helsinki, it’s well worth installing.
Also the airport trains depart the city from various platforms at either edge of the station but the signing is always spot on and you can’t get lost.
Good review. . I’ll always take the train so long as it’s safe and convenient; fortunately Europe is pretty well-served by airport trains. Sometimes too expensive for what they offer, eg Arlanda ( but that service is owned by a very greedy Australian bank…)
It’s nice when trains offer a family discount. Otherwise the train to/from the airport can be a great bargain for one person, but not for four. Munich for one has a family discount to keep the fare for four under the taxi fare from the airport to the city center.
The ticket that you bought do not need a validation inside of the train, same ticket is valid intra city trams and buses during the 1hour and 40 minutes as written, so instead of walk to Hilton Strand you could use the same ticket.
Can’t wait to try this when we can travel again
Is there no train service on Saturdays between 4-7pm?
It’s currently running about 5:30am – 01am during weekends, and 5am-1:30am during weekdays. During the daytime it’s about every 10 minutes throughout the week.
The travel restriction recommendations changed again yesterday and flight schedules are nothing but certain so check first — but in general it does run all time time except the wee hours of the night.
I was recently at HEL for the first time in a few years and was really impressed with all of the changes. The train is a much quicker walk now (as called out above) and especially in the arrivals area there are quite a lot of nice food options. I hope they can make similar investments soon on the airside, as that part was a bit lacking currently (although it seems like it’s still under construction as well).
Use the HSL app for ticket purchases, once you have set it up and of course you can set it up in English, it’s so easy to use and works then for any journeys you wish to make in the travel zones all of which are clearly indicated. Once in the city using a tram or bus, finding tickets isn’t always so easy so again the app makes life simple. I’m not sure if it’s still true but in times past, tickets in the app were also a bit cheaper than paper ones.
Tickets cost the same in the app and when using a travel card.
But tourists will not have a travel card and so their only alternative to the App is to buy paper tickets which are often hard to buy because they have removed a lot of the machines AND (as you write ) they are (still in 2023) more expensive.
One thing that you don’t as such mention (but which is included in your travel times) is that all trains in both directions always stop at every station.
Times could easily be reduced by ?half? if stops were only made at ‘junction’ stations.
Certainly that would be a major improvement for people using the train to get to or from the airport.
Agreed. Not sure whether the track infrastructure exists, but it would be great t0 have an express train.
There was some discussion about faster trains when the service opened. (One in two trains would be faster perhaps)
I can’t remember reading anywhere that the reason they weren’t happening was a lack of suitable tracks but it might have been that, however most of the stations are above ground and therefore in most cases I suspect building by-pass tracks (perhaps only in one direction) ought to be possible if there is a will.