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.
The reaction to covid -19 has made us aware of many people working in, and involved with the cruise industry losing their jobs. And that's not just foreigner's who are affected.
Many Americans working in ports , hotels , and especially Airlines are losing their jobs now.
Businesses like Taxis and Travel agencies lose money. My travel agent has gone out of business.
There seems to me no relief in sight , and our Govt. goes further into debt by Trillions, as it tries to help out the now unemployed workers.
Like it our not, we have to get back to business shortly or many more bankruptcies and unemployment will follow.-
This thread is just a reminder of that. - Tom
You are correct of course.
I’ve never taken a cruise. Never really want to take a cruise.
But the macroeconomic effects of this affect us all.
Though you’d have to find me dead prior to being put on a cruise ship.....
I have always believed that most of the staff on those ships are extremely hard working folks. There are scum, as in all industries, I’ll admit.
Still most of very hard working individuals.
Not to mention, brave. No freaking way would I be caught (except dead) away from land. LOL
All those hard working small day trip excursion companies will go bankrupt too.
Unless you work in an Amazon warehouse your job is either gone or on its way out. These are terrible times but at least we saved some money on our Chinese made goods.
What country is buying up these ships?
Who’s buying up our leftist-crippled businesses?
The greatest captain of all according to Jerry Doyle aka B5’s Garibaldi.
I heard him say that at a DragonCon.
There are four Carnival ships in the “fantasy” class: Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Fascination, Carnival Imagination, and Carnival Inspiration. All of them are old and smaller. Been on 10 different Carnival boats, but never on those.
I’m more worried about Issac the Bartender! He can’t work on a cruise ship now, and even restaurants and bars on land are locked down.
He truly is a man without a country! ;)
Can’t have a mutiny without a crew.
... But the macroeconomic effects of this affect us all.
not too much here, to the west of the Smokies. Cruises to us are an expensive luxury.
I was on the next to last cruise of the Carnival Fascination in February. Covid was just starting to take off. Got denied entry to St. Lucia and came close to being denied entry to Barbados. Disembarked in San Juan on February 29th. Got raped in the casino, so, you won’t be missed Fascination.
I don’t drink and never did but I have a soda or two to hang around with Isaac.
Commander Geordi LaForge is Isaac the bartender with sunglasses
Convince me otherwise.
CC
They are scrapping them. I read a recent article about cruise lines scrapping ships in Turkey.
Even if you are not interested in cruises the Cruise Industry affects many other Americans who work for Travel agencies, Hotels, Airlines, Taxis, shopkeepers, restaurants manufacturers of travel gear etc.
It is not like the Cruise Lines are reorganizing or going out of business because of bad business decisions, it is caused by countries shutting down because of Covid-19, a worldwide virus no one can seem to get an authoritative believable way of how to handle the virus.-Tom
The approved ship only shore excursions, or you can't go ashore, I am sure will hurt the locals doing specialized tours.
One cruise line TUI in Europe, that has the Mein Shiff cruise ships, has several of their ships doing scenic cruises only, so nobody gets to go ashore. - Tom
Spot on, Capt.
The other lines that will go under are, what might be called the water taxi lines, that take people from Florida to the Bahamas.
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