42,000 Cruise Ship Employees Are Stuck at Sea

Cruise ship employees stuck at sea

MIAMI, FL – June 18, 2020 – According to an online news report published on The Miami Herald, tens of thousands of cruise ship employees remain stuck at sea due to the coronavirus epidemic.  According to news reports, these employees are not only trapped on cruise ships, but the employees also aren’t receiving paychecks, and some workers are suffering from the coronavirus illness.  The cruise industry has been shut down for over three months, and the situation doesn’t appear to be improving as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is prohibiting cruise ships from entering in U.S. waters until July 25, 2020.

For most of the employees, the coronavirus symptoms have been mild to moderate, and the symptoms of the virus generally clear up in a few weeks.  However, it is unclear if the coronavirus can re-infect people who have previously recovered from the illness.  Also, COVID-19 can cause severe symptoms and can be fatal in employees who are older and employees who have pre-existing health issues.

It is estimated that only 3,000 Carnival Cruise Line employees were able to depart some of their cruise ships.  Some cruise ships were allowed to enter a port in Croatia a few weeks ago.  This enabled European employees to travel back to their home counties in Europe.  MSC Cruises flew about 1,000 Indian cruise ship crew members back to India on chartered airplanes from South America and Europe.  Royal Caribbean flew 1,200 Filipino cruise ship workers back to the Philippines from Dubai, the United States, Greece, and Barbados.  Barbados is one of the few Caribbean countries to allow cruise ship crew members to fly out on repatriation flights from its airports.  Almost all Caribbean countries have shut down their ports and will not allow cruise ships to dock at their ports due to fear of increasing the number of coronavirus cases.