Crew repatriation efforts of Carnival Cruise Line near completion

   July 18, 2020 ,   Cruise Industry

CCL-Carnival Cruise Line is now in the final stages of repatriating its crew. 26,000+ crew were sent home from the CCL’s 26 ships. The crew repatriation process included sending cruise liners to the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, South Africa, Indonesia, India, and The Philippines.

The plan's final stage includes voyages in Latin America and the Caribbean for repatriating thousands of crew who are citizens of 25+ nations throughout the region.

CCL announced that some countries (The Bahamas, Colombia, Curacao, Barbados, Mexico, Panama, Saint Maarten, Nicaragua) had assisted in the crew repatriation via seaport operations and helping to facilitate the safe crew transfers through ground transportation, chartered and commercial flights. 

By July 20, 2020, CCL expects to have ~400 crew remaining onboard (fleetwide) and awaiting repatriation. Most of the seafarers are already waiting for travel restrictions to be eased or their home country’s borders to be opened.

Carnival Corporation's CEO Arnold Donald revealed that as of July 7, a total of 53 of Carnival Corp's 104 ships (global fleet of 9 brands) were in full pause status. He expects that all vessels would reach full pause status during 2020-Q3. Each ship retrained only a skeleton / essential crew needed for navigation and engineering along with a few hotel staff to provide basic services.

Carnival Corporation had ~77000 crew that it was working to get back home during the suspension in passenger shipping operations due to the ongoing pandemic.