TRAVEL BREAKS

Ross Thorby: It’s been a tumultuous year

Our team of five million has suffered not only the slings and arrows and violent twists and turns of a vicious microbe, but an election as well.

You might have also noticed that it’s been very quiet down at the ports - devoid of the constant stream of cruise ships tying up, providores whipping around on forklifts, suitcases ferried in cages and taxis shuttling excited guests back and forth.

Normally, about now is the start of our cruise season and usually my daily walk would include Princess and Queens Wharfs to see what the early morning tide has brought in. This year I’m staring sadly at the empty berths lying forlorn and abandoned without even a hint of a lifeboat or a smoking stack, only the lonely lap of the Waitemata against the wooden piles.

Out of the 139 cruise ships that were booked to visit the City of Sails, the majority have cancelled and while our borders remain closed, it’s obvious that the rest will soon follow. At an estimated spend of at least $193 million for the season, it’s not only me noticing the vacant berths, but our city’s economy is also feeling the pinch. A big hit for us financially and a chunk of needless steps on my pedometer.

But it does beg the question - and in the words of a famous advertising company - “Where the bloody hell are they?” What has happened to the 400 odd cruise ships that usually navigate our Seven Seas?

For the first time in history, cruise ships have entered the largest pause in operations that the planet has ever seen. Some cruise lines have announced suspension until at least May 2021, which means that some have been out of the cruise market now for over 14 months.

Some of these ships cost over a billion dollars to build and 2018 figures produced by Carnival show that Cunard’s Queen Victoria for example usually has a yearly revenue of $US800m. Cruise ships in the Carnival fleet show an average profitability margin of around 17 - 18%. That’s a huge tumble in anyone’s money.

Most of the World’s ships are currently in ‘warm layup’, a term indicating that most of a ship’s major systems are being maintained and is basically being kept ‘as good as new’, ready to be re-commissioned immediately. Some older ships in less profitable lines, are in ‘cold layup’, when most systems are shut down and the ship permanently moored somewhere; a situation that doesn’t bode well, meaning the next step is the sale or the knackers yard. Already a number of ships have been sold for either scrap or to the Asian market. Already several well-known brands have declared bankruptcy. When the pandemic struck earlier this year, hundreds of ships were in the middle of scheduled cruises and most were forced into the nearest port disgorging shocked and angry passengers into far flung countries with no idea of how to get home; not helped by airlines and borders closing in rapid succession. While some cruise companies did help their passengers return home, others didn’t. It was not only the passengers who were affected, but thousands of crew as well. Across the ditch, once it became known that they were not welcome anymore, cruise ships became repatriation ships and gathered crew from different fleets to ferry them back to home countries unreachable by the airlines. It was reported by Forbes that some 49 ships around the world repatriated 80,000 crew this way. The Philippines had at one stage over two dozen ships from various companies anchored in Manila Bay full of crew waiting out isolation periods before they were able to join the comfort of their families. Other ships, such as the Queen Mary 2, after evicting her passengers in Australia, sailed back to the UK hoping to sit out the pandemic in friendlier waters.

Nine cruise ships were recently anchored off Limassol, Cyprus; the city taking advantage of the situation with Carnival paying them a small fortune to have their ships laid-up there. It has been a bonus for the Island nation devastated by the loss of tourism revenue. Other ship clusters are in Barbados, Marseilles, Panama, Weymouth, Curacao and Glasgow, where town and city councils have also seen an advantage to their bottom-line.

2020 was meant to be one of the cruising world’s most prolific years, but it has turned out to be its ‘annus horribilis’.

Let’s hope 2021 is better – for all of us. (ROSS THORBY)  PN

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used to transport wine from Donkey Bay Lodge Vineyard in