Cruise industry pleads to reopen
Eager to get back to business by July
Major cruise lines are eager to resume operations from U.S. ports, and they’re calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make it happen by July.
“The early-July timeframe is in line with President Biden’s forecast for when the United States will be ‘closer to normal,’ ” according to the statement released Wednesday by the industry’s trade group, the Cruise Lines International Association.
The association is asking the CDC to lift an order issued in October — called a Framework for Conditional Sailing Order — that required the industry to wait for further guidance before resuming cruises. That guidance was supposed to include instructions for cruise lines to operate “test cruises” that would demonstrate whether planned safety measures provided sufficient protection for passengers and crew members.
But further guidance has not been issued, prompting some cruise lines to establish temporary homeports outside the U.S. for Caribbean cruises this summer that would normally launch from U.S. ports. Royal Caribbean International, for example, recently announced plans to launch sevennight sailings from Nassau, The Bahamas, and Bermuda beginning in June, with vaccinated passengers and crew members.
When announced in October, the CDC’s framework replaced a series of no-sail orders that had been in effect since spring. The announcement was greeted with enthusiasm by cruise lines and even Gov. Ron DeSantis, who voiced optimism that it would lead to a timely resumption of operations. That was before last winter’s surge pushed infection rates
across the U.S. to levels several times higher than they reached last summer.
Since then, cruise lines have extended their suspensions numerous times and canceled hundreds of scheduled cruises that they allowed customers to book — and pay for — in hope the CDC’s guidance was imminent. Even today, most of the major cruise lines are still booking reservations for June voyages that their association’s statement makes clear are unlikely to happen.
The association’s latest statement called the conditional sailing order “outdated,” asserting it “does not reflect the industry’s proven advancements and success operating in other parts of the world, nor the advent of vaccines, and unfairly treats cruises differently.”
It also states that “cruising is the only sector of the U.S. economy that remains prohibited, even as most others have opened or continued to operate throughout the pandemic.”
The statement called for the CDC to allow for the planning of a “phased resumption of cruise operations from U.S. ports by the beginning of July.”
A CDC spokesman responded to the association with this statement: “On October 30, 2020, CDC issued [a] Framework for Conditional Sailing Order [CSO] that remains in effect until November 1, 2021.
Returning to passenger cruising is a phased approach to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID19. Details for the next phase of the CSO are currently under interagency review.”
Port Everglades chief executive and director Jonathan Daniels said by email that the Broward County port is operating at a 54% revenue loss so far this year mainly due to the cruise industry shutdown.
“We are now losing cruise business to other countries that have adopted protocols to ensure safe sailing and containment against community spread of the virus,” Daniels said. “We need the CDC to do the same and focus on the cruise industry as they have with the rest of the hospitality and tourism industry in the United States already.”
While its cargo and energy businesses have offset some of the port’s lost revenue, the cruise industry shutdown forced the permanent or temporary loss of 13,000 local workers, including dock workers, taxi and bus drivers, security workers and shoreside cruise personnel, Daniels said.
Nationwide, the industry supported nearly 450,000 U.S. jobs and generated more than $55.5 billion in economic activity prior to the pandemic, the industry association said. More than 300,000 jobs have been lost because of the shutdown, the association said, citing statistics from a market study underwritten by the industry.
The industry shutdown, announced March 13, 2020, followed news of widespread outbreaks among passengers on numerous ships well before the virus began raging through communities on land. According to the New York Times, the CDC logged reports of infections aboard more than 100 ships that sickened nearly 3,000 people, including more than 850 passengers. The figures counted cases that were “clinically compatible” with COVID-19, but not confirmed by testing.
But cruise lines have been testing and developing safety protocols over the past eight months aboard ships that were allowed to sail from countries in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. Nearly 400,000 passengers have since sailed on “highly controlled” voyages, resulting in fewer than 50 cases of COVID-19, the association said, citing “public reports.”