Cruise crew board MIA flights home amid pandemic
Healthy crew members who have been stuck on the coronavirus-stricken Costa Favolosa and Costa Magica cruise ships since midMarch finally touched land in Miami Monday on their way home.
Dozens of workers were shuttled via lifeboat to PortMiami, then boarded buses bound for Miami International Airport around 9:00 a.m. One Wamos Air charter flight and two Ethiopian Air flights — both headed to Manila, Philippines — were scheduled to depart in the early afternoon but were delayed into the evening.
Another two charter flights on Wamos Air for Carnival Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line crew were also slated for Monday, a spokesperson for the airport confirmed.
Carnival Corporation, which owns Costa Cruises, arranged the charter flights after 13 crew from the ships were evacuated to Miami hospitals on Thursday.
Over the weekend, onboard medical staff tested crew for COVID-19 via a blood sample, a Favolosa crew member said. Those with negative results were given the all clear to disembark. Those with positive results remain on the ships, which departed for Europe Monday afternoon.
A spokesperson for Carnival Corp. did not immediately respond to questions about the blood tests and what will happen to the crew who have the virus.
According to crew reports, those aboard Favolosa woke up at 3:00 a.m. Monday, ate breakfast at 4:00 a.m. and readied to board the lifeboats. By 9:00 a.m., they were waiting on buses outside MIA’s Terminal J. The crew did not pass through the airport terminal; instead, buses entered the runway through a side gate, pulled right up to the plane, and the crew boarded via staircase
A crew member reached by Facebook messenger described himself as “exhausted tired.” He said he hopes this will be the last step of the journey home to Manila after a stressful month.
In mid-March, all passengers and a few crew disembarked from the Favolosa and Magica in the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe after the cruise industry canceled all new cruises on March 13 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Costa said eight people on the ships tested positive for COVID-19, including four crew members. The Ministry of Health for Trinidad and Tobago said Monday that 49 passengers from the Costa Favolosa have tested positive since returning home.
Authorities in Guadeloupe and Martinique would not allow the ships to remain docked there, and all other Caribbean ports turned the ships away. On Thursday, they arrived at Miami’s coast and evacuated 13 crew members who needed lifecritical care to Miami hospitals.
Matt Pinzur, a spokesperson for the Jackson Health system, where some of the sick crew are being treated, said he did not have information about the test results of the hospitalized crew.
Cruise companies have been trying to get crew members home since canceling new cruises on March 13 and offloading passengers shortly after — a task that is increasingly difficult given coronavirus travel restrictions.
A letter from Norwegian Cruise Line provided to the Herald by a crew member shows the company planned to fly Filipino workers to Manila on Monday and Tuesday. The letter said the crew would be quarantined in a hotel for 14 days upon their return. The company did not respond to requests for comment about how many crew are departing.
A Norwegian Encore crew member tested positive for COVID-19 one day after departing the ship at PortMiami on March 23. Crew members who departed the ship that day in PortMiami who spoke to the Herald say they were not asked about their health when they left the ship and no one took their temperature.
Crew on three MSC ships floating in and around PortMiami are still stuck. Nearly every day since mid-March a Filipino worker said he has been told they would be flying home soon, only to be told later that flights were canceled. He said they are desperate to get off the ships and home to their families.
“I fell like I want to explode,” he said Monday after hearing the news of another canceled flight. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”