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 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.