A lot of them are being sent to the breakers.
Posted on 10/16/2020 1:45:49 PM PDT by Capt. Tom
During unprecedented times in the cruise industry, the crew and officers that work onboard are incredibly hard hit. While most have been home for six months, mostly without pay, cruise lines are now starting to scrap positions.
With the sale of four ships, Holland America has been slimmed down considerably. While new ships are on the way, these will come too late for many crew members that counted on these vessels as their income and livelihood.
Carnival Corporation Reducing Costs Carnival Corporation has been selling ships which have proven to be less effective and not as profitable as other vessels for the last few months. All this has happened to make Carnival Corporation more profitable and the fleet considerably younger.
The corporation has plans to transfer a total of 18 ships from the company. CEO Donald Arnold had this to say about the transfer just a few weeks ago:
“We are accelerating the exit of 18 less-efficient ships from our fleet. This will generate a 12 percent reduction in capacity and a structurally lower cost base while retaining the most cash-generative assets in our portfolio.”
Some ships that are included in this are:
Carnival Cruise Line: Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Fascination, Carnival Imagination, and Carnival Inspiration. Costa Cruises: Costa Victoria, Costa Atlantica, Costa Mediterranea and Costa neoRomantica. P&O Cruises: Pacific Aria, Pacific Dawn, and Oceana.
The company also sold the Holland America ships Maasdam, Veendam, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam, leading to the crew and officers being dismissed.
Gus Antorcha: “Starting Formal Process To Reduce Officers And Crew”e In a statement posted today on the Holland America social media channels, and indirect communication to the crew members, the recently appointed president of Holland America Cruise Line, Gus Antorcha, said the following:
“With our operational pause continuing to be extended, we have taken many aggressive steps together to lower the cost structure of the company and raise capital.”
However, to align with the reduced size of the fleet, we have now made the tough decision to begin a formal process to reduce the number of officers and crew members in our establishment.”
Some officers had already been notified earlier, while the others would be informed within the next 45 days.
Although the company hopes that natural attrition would take effect and fewer people would be impacted, this seems unlikely in a period where more and more people are losing their job.
Cruise Industry Struggles To Survive
More and more unsettling news is coming from all corners of the cruise industry; only recently, Carnival Cruise line had to take the same measures as Holland America Line. Simultaneously, Costa Cruise Line managed to transfer many crew to their new ship, a large amount of crew and officers remain at home.
Also Read: It’s a New Reality for Thousands of Cruise Ship Crew Members
The Expedition cruise market has also been hit extremely hard with both the Arctic and Antarctic seasons canceled for nearly 60 vessels.
Crew members who have counted on the ships for their livelihood, income, and support for years and years are left behind in an industry struggling to stay afloat.
I think the original love boat wound up being scrapped somewhere in that area.
Love Boat was a one hour commercial for cruise lines and b and c-list celebrities.
Luckily my tv had an off switch.
cnsmom wrote: “All those hard working small day trip excursion companies will go bankrupt too.”
Perhaps but the cruise line generally contract with those ‘small day excursion companies”. If you go to ‘swim with the dolphins, you may well ride the same bus regardless of whether you book direct or through the cruise line.
The complaint has been that the cruise line adds a surcharge over what the ‘small day excursion companies” charge increasing the cost of the excursion.
Those that will be hurt the most are the merchants who pay the ‘small day excursion companies’ to stop at their shops.
In the COVID era, what circumstances should you avoid at all costs?
1. Cruises
2. Subways
3. Buses (not as bad as subways because on subways more new people keep getting on)
4. Airports (not the planes, as they have air filtering for COVID, but airports are where you have to go to get on and off planes).
5. Participating in large choirs
6. Professional Baseball, Football, Basketball, games because the players and coaches and owners are neutered ANTI-AMERICAN BLM POSes.
As the mass of dollars in the economy shrinks even those Amazon employees will be cut down to size.
“What country is buying up these ships?”
The Carnival Fantasy, which was home ported in Mobile, Al. is on sone beach in Turkey being scrapped. I believe that is the fate of most of the ships being taken out of service.
This is NOT because of the Kung Flu, this is because the irrational response to the Kung Flu.
The lockdown has destroyed more wealth and more lives than any virus has. Continued lockdowns are insane and stupid.
People who support them need to die and get the boots off the rest of our necks. Yes I mean every damn word of this.
We are heading for a depression if we don’t open up the world.
Open us up!
Well said ....... I agree 100% !
Both Philippines and Indonesia hugely hit due to Cruise lines going under.
80 percent staffed by these 2 countries.
We took several tours on Disney with grandchildren and their parents. It is an amazing, positive experience. We were supposed to cross Atlantic this Spring on a Disney Cruise but I expect we’ll never go again. We could spend time with children but also several parts of ship, including pools, were off-limits to children. We took courses in Cognac, Single Malt Scotch and Martini making over the years.
LOL!
LeVar Burton and Ted Lange. Close, but no Martini for you! ;)
I’ve only been on a few cruises, but I think my first one was on the Amsterdam to Alaska.
Because of health issues with my wife for the last 5 years we have given up flying and just go out of Boston to Bermuda.
As a matter of fact, today we planned to be leaving at 5 PM on the Norwegian "Gem", Boston to Bermuda, but it got cancelled awhile ago.
Our cruising future is questionable, now. -Tom
A lot of them are being sent to the breakers.
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