Miami based cruise lawyer Jim Walker, reporting from the Seatrade Cruise Convention Virtual taking place this last week, says that he posed some rather straightforward questions, via Twitter, to panellists during a State of the Global Cruise Industry session chaired by Anne Kalosh, Editor of Seatrade Cruise News.
His concern is though that the questions remain unanswered, with the four questions he posed to the panel on the panel, which included the heads of the major cruise companies, Frank del Rio, President and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Richard Fain, Chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, Arnold Donald, President and CEO of Carnival Corporation & PLC and Pier Francisco Vago, Executive Chairman of MSC Cruises were as follows: –
- Have all CCL, MSC, NCL & RCL cruise ships been retrofitted with appropriate air-conditioning & ventilation systems with HEPA filters to reduce airborne transmission of COVID19 to guests & crew?
- What is the exact proposed reduced capacity (%) of cruise ship regarding guests & crew?
- Who will be responsible for the medical & repatriation costs when a guest or crew member becomes infected with COVID19 on a cruise?; and
- Let’s say a family shows up for a cruise. A rapid Covid test comes back positive for someone. What happens? Do they get their money back?
All very interesting questions with Jim very concerned that they remain unanswered.
Perhaps the Australian management of these companies might like to answer them?
One thing is for certain, being a lawyer and a very tenacious one at that, once Jim gets replies he will post them and we will also let you have any replies he or we receive!
A report by John Alwyn-Jones
They didn’t answer him because they do not intend to do any of the things he asked about.
Simple as that.