Carnival Corporation's German Based cruise line AIDA Cruises, announced it will expand its range of cruises this autumn with new voyages to Italy, starting on Oct. 17, 2020. 

Several Italian news outlets including the newspaper Giornale di Sicilia reported an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases detected in Sicily.  

The unprecedented level of unemployment caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic has forced many people to seek employment opportunities and search for a job. There have been reports in the past month of an increasing number of cruise ship recruitment scams seeking to take advantage of the people during the crisis. Fraudsters are known to create official-looking websites or profiles on social media in order to convince potential victims they are legit.

It is hard to believe that after 7 months since the global shutdown of the cruise industry there are still crew members waiting to be sent back home. While majority of the crew were repatriated long time ago, about 103 of our fellow crew members from Mauritus are still stranded on 3 MSC cruise ships in Brazil. They have patiently waited for a positive news from their Government, MSC cruises and their recruiting Agency Oceangoers to return home and be with their loved ones.

The Italian cruise line Costa Cruises has announced it will temporarily cut the salaries for 15% of the crew members currently onboard the ships. The pay cuts are part of a plan to preserve the jobs of all shoreside and shipboard employees. To reach this objective all Costa employees will have to give their personal contribution as the company prepares to restart cruises is September with the Costa Deliziosa from Trieste and the Costa Diadema from Genoa.

Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas which are all part of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) will further reduce its crew that are currently on board the ships as they enter a cool lay-up manning. The crew level will be below specified by the ship’s minimum safe manning operation, but still sufficient to satisfy maintenance and security requirements.

The Greek ferry company Seajets is the new owner of the recently sold Holland America Line cruise ships ms Veendam and ms Maasdam. Once things get back to normal Seajets will enter the highly competitive cruise market with 3 cruise vessels in the fleet, as the company had already bought the cruise ship Oceana from P&O Cruises. 

P&O Cruises Australia is extending its pause in cruise operations in Australia through December 2, 2020, as the company continues to take guidance from authorities, public health experts, authorities and society on restarting sailing.

After Carnival Corporation announced on July 29, that the company will be disposing additional two ships as part of non-cash impairment charge, it would appear that the next ship heading for scrapyard might be Carnival Imagination. According to the ship-tracking website Marine Traffic, Carnival Imagination’s reported destination is now set to the Turkish port of Aliaga with an estimated arrival at the scrapyard on 10th September.

Carnival’s UK-based brand Cunard announced extension of its pause in operations. The Iconic brand will resume sailings in March 25, 2021, with Queen Elizabeth; following Queen Mary 2 on April 18, 2021 and finally on May 16, 2021 Queen Victoria is expected to set sail with guests.