Silja Europa, the 1993 built cruise ferry of Tallink Grupp, will be employed as an accommodation vessel in Australia, making it the second ageing ship the listed Estonian company employs in this way.

"AS Tallink Grupp and Bridgemans Services Ltd. have entered into a charter agreement to charter the cruise ferry Silja Europa to Australia from August 2014 as an accommodation vessel. The period of the charter is at least 14 months with an option to extend up to 48 months," the company said in a statement.

The company's 1986 built 34,000 gross ton Silja Festival has been employed in similar role in Canada for some time. Silja Europa is of 59,912 gross tons.

"In relation to the above initially the following re-routings are planned in our operations: Baltic Queen which is operating on Tallinn-Stockholm today will change to Tallinn-Helsinki route presumably on 7 August 2014 and Romantika which is operating on Riga-Stockholm route today will change to Tallinn-Stockholm route. Isabelle will continue the service on Riga-Stockholm route," Tallink said.

Tallink Grupp will continue to work with different alternatives in order to optimise its fleet and routes, which may bring some further changes to the operations. "The charter of Silja Europa and ships route changes will bring the necessity to lower the number of employees. Respective discussions with employee unions have been started," the company said.