JOEL Katz is Managing Director, Australasia for Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). Around the world right now, cruise lines and CLIA are battling on behalf of our passengers and crew. Not only are we fighting against COVID-19, we’re also dealing with fear and knee-jerk reactions. In Australia, all cruise ships...
JOEL Katz is Managing Director, Australasia for Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).
Around the world right now, cruise lines and CLIA are battling on behalf of our passengers and crew. Not only are we fighting against COVID-19, we’re also dealing with fear and knee-jerk reactions.
In Australia, all cruise ships have already disembarked their passengers and suspended operations in a careful and staged response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
This has been a huge operation here and across the world, with teams of staff working day and night to coordinate a safe and orderly return to port for hundreds of ships and hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Of course there have been setbacks, but the focus has remained steadfastly on the health and safety of passengers and crew, and cruise lines have worked under the direction of governments and health authorities at every step.
While there has been a great deal of attention on passengers who disembarked from specific ships, government and health authorities have confirmed their protocols were correctly followed by cruise lines.
Despite this, there are still a few cases where cruise lines are struggling against emotion and politics, and have been prevented from bringing passengers to shore.
Ironically, while our own government has been working to help Australians caught in such situations overseas, people have suffered similar uncertainty in our own waters.
Regardless of whether someone has travelled by land, by air or by sea, they deserve the same commitment to their wellbeing.
If it’s possible to process people at airports in an orderly way – and with isolation precautions in place – then we can also process cruise passengers and crew with a similarly sensible approach.
Cruise lines are very close to achieving a complete and unprecedented suspension of international operations globally.
The impact on the travel industry and our travel agent community will be enormous.
But, whatever the cost, we can’t lose sight of the most important factor when making decisions on the fate of cruise passengers or crew — we’re dealing with people, who deserve the same care and respect as others.
