NCLH-Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings announced it is temporarily suspending all assignments for its crew members from India, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and South Africa due to a surge of COVID cases in these countries.
According to NCLH's VP Shipboard HR Operations, the company had made "a hard decision to suspend incoming crew movement based on reviewing crewing pools by country considering three factors: Prevalence, Number of mutations, and general availability of vaccines to seafarers in the listed countries."
NCLH crew from Brazil received a separate letter informing them that NCLH would need to temporarily pause the assignments until further notice. Although Brazilians are currently paused from joining cruise ships, the company will still require them to continue to obtain necessary documents to join so after the pause has been lifted they are ready to board. NCLH will be reviewing the situation and advise the crew members as soon as anything changes.
In April 2021, NCLH announced the restart of passenger shipping operations with new itineraries in Europe and Caribbean on the NCL ships Gem, Jade and Joy. The company also revealed plans for the next phase of return to operation including the restart of its 2 brands Oceania with the ship Marina, and RSSC-Regent with Seven Seas Splendor.
The latest cancelation of assignments is another setback, however considering the fact that Norwegian has a crew for 17 cruise ships and many loyal crew members currently on standby from other countries. The decision to cancel assignments is a difficult one for people who were looking forward to returning and work.