A Return to Sailing Still in Flux for Major Cruise Lines as Grim New Reality Sets In
Photo Credit: Holland America's leaders are still deliberating how to revive the stalled cruise industry from the pandemic. Wikimedia / pcwiles
Skift Take
While cruise companies grapple with another no sail order extension from the U.S., offering up clear communication about heightened health protocols could steer the industry into a better position with regulators.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s extended no-sail order on the cruise industry is currently set to lapse at the end of this month.
Holland America Line pushed back its own return to the seas to mid-December, but the cruise company’s president Gus Antorcha anticipates even further setbacks to that plan.
“I think over the next couple of weeks here, as we get greater clarity working with officials with the U.S. government, we’re likely going to have to tweak some of those plans,” Antorcha said this week during the Seatrade Cruise conference.
Leaders at Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America’s sister company, earlier this week similarly pushed back planned sailings to the end of 2020 and warned even those trips could be cancelled.
The CDC extended the no sail order at the end of September and cited 3,689 coronavirus cases and 41 deaths stemmed from cruise ships between the beginning of March and late September in U.S. waters. More than 82 percent
