Knut Kloster, one of the cruise industry's leading visionaries and entrepreneurs, has died at the of 91. He was the founder of Norwegian Caribbean Lines (today Norwegian Cruise Line) and a short-lived business partner with Ted Arison, founder of Carnival Cruise Line. Kloster was the visionary to convert the SS France to a 2,000-passenger cruise ship SS Norway. The SS Norway was the industry’s first mega-ship to sail during the 80s out of Miami. 

Today the popular cruise website Cruise Capital reported that Princess Cruises has sold two of its cruise ships as part of Carnival Corporation restructuring plan to sell 18 ships from its fleet this year amid the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The British cruise line P&O Cruises, part of Carnival Corporation & plc has announced today that the company is cancelling all sailings until early 2021. All Caribbean cruises on board the P&O ships are cancelled until the end of January 2021, and all cruises from and to Southampton are cancelled through February as well as Arcadia and Aurora, which have already been cancelled through to the end of their spring world cruises.

Costa Cruises flagship Costa Smeralda, arrived this morning in the port of Savona for final preparations ahead of the planned restart in the Mediterranean scheduled for 10 October.

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.