According to a social media post by Michael Bayley, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, while the Group recently paused the employment of Indian crew due the severity of the Covid outbreak in India he announced that the company will begin hiring India crew again later this month.
While clearly the presence of Indian crew members during such a challenging time would appear be a concern for guests and other crew members, Bayley said while the company will start bringing on Indian crew again on May 21, it will be with new enhanced safety protocols.
According to Bayley, these new protocols are said to include a negative pre-travel PCR test, 14 day pre-travel quarantine, another pre-travel negative PCR test, a charter flight, another negative PCR test, vaccination, further quarantine and another negative PCR test
He added, “Hopefully these enhanced protocols will only be in place for a short time as we all become vaccinated”, and “Other countries where the pandemic is surging will have same protocols”, and “Crew contracts will be lengthened during this period by two months.”
An edited report by John Alwyn-Jones, Cruise Editor.
