Important Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) and the Government of India represented by Director General of Shipping Mr. Shri Amitabh Kumar, during the Maritime India Summit (MIS) held from 2nd-4th March 2021.
Croatian Institute for Public Health announced that it will prioritize maritime personnel to receive Covid-19 vaccines in the third phase. According to the director of the Institute Dr. Vladimir Mićović, the vaccination of Croatian seafarers should start in May 2021.
The residential community at sea Storylines will not proceed with the idea of implementing sleeping pods for crew members after overwhelmingly negative responses to the survey.
The start-up luxury residential community at sea Storylines, which is set to debut in 2023 with the cruise ship M/V Narrative has recently created a survey targeting the crew members. The goal is to evaluate the mental health, productivity, safety of the shipboard employees with a focus on the crew living quarters.
The race to get the Covid-19 vaccine by the major corporations around the world has started before the worldwide rollouts begun. This is most evident across the United States where major corporations such as Amazon, Lyft and Uber are lobbying states and the federal government to designate their employees as essential workers and place them in line for early immunization.
The fate of the Spanish cruise line Pullmantur who filed for reorganization, claiming insolvency under Spanish law, is still unclear after mixed messages in the Spanish media were reported in the past few days.
The crew of the cruise ship MS Charming, operated by the Chinese startup company Foresee Cruises, claims they didn't receive salary for almost two months. According to our source, there are 121 crew members on board, mostly Filipino nationals, who say that the company violates the terms of their contracts.
The cruise ship Norwegian Joy is slowly getting ready to return non-essential crew back home after NCLH announced further cancelations of cruises through April 30, 2021.
The fate of the crew on board Ponant cruise ship Le Laperouse, who are from several different countries, remains highly uncertain after New Zealand immigration authorities have denied them entry visas. Le Laperouse was scheduled to start the first of seven planned cruises from Auckland on February 8th, after receiving permission from New Zealand Ministry of Health to operate within NZ waters, for Kiwis only.
With the release of the vaccine for COVID for essential workers such as medical professionals and positive thus far response from people who have taken both doses of the vaccine, the cruise industry is starting to review options related to how they can implement policies related to vaccination in order to be able to return the crew to work and the guests to enjoy cruises. However, the views of each cruise line appear to be different, at least for now.
