Carnival Cruise Line is in talks with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is “working towards” restarting sailing in July, Carnival President Christine Duffy told NBC News on Monday.
With their close confines and larger share of passengers who are older and more vulnerable, cruise ships were the sites of some of the first coronavirus outbreaks outside China.
Cruises were largely shut down under a CDC “No Sail Order” from March to October 2020. Some cruises resumed under conditional sail orders in the fall. On May 5, the CDC issued updated guidance allowing cruise ships to conduct “trial” voyages and apply for certificates for restricted passenger trips.
Carnival — the largest cruise line in the world by revenue, bringing in $8 billion annually — confirms it is currently in active discussions with the CDC about reopening, after a hiatus.
“We are again,” Duffy said about the negotiating. “So, for a while we weren’t and we respect that. Obviously at the beginning the focus really was on getting vaccine in arms but they’ve come back to the table with us and in early spring I think in earnest with us and with other inner-agency groups to really get clear on what guidelines and protocols are going to be required for us to sail again from U.S. ports.”
For more on this story, watch “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” at 6:30 p.m. ET.
One key point in the discussions is the requirement for passengers and crew members to be fully vaccinated. The CDC has said that cruise ships can resume open-water sailing if 98 percent of crew members and 95 percent of passengers are fully vaccinated.
“There’s no mandate in for any other business to have that requirement,” Duffy said. “We certainly are encouraging everyone to get a vaccine and our crew members that have been … are very grateful to have that opportunity.”
However, with no approved vaccine currently available for kids under 12, that age group would not be allowed on board. That’s a blow to the family tickets that comprise a large chunk of cruise industry bookings.
“Children under 12 are a big part of the cruise experience in a family vacation in the summer, and as it stands right now, we wouldn’t be able to have kids under 12 on board,” Duffy said.
The cruise industry is eager to work with the administration and soon again set sail.
“We employ about 500,000 people in the U.S. and we’ve lost about 300,000 direct jobs at this point. We’re down about 40 percent of employees and we have 30,000 crew members that we repatriated at the start of this who were at home waiting to come back to work,” Duffy said.
“The CDC and the interagency groups that are working with us now have that same goal in mind, as President Biden said. He wants to reopen America by the Fourth of July and we want to make sure that the cruise industry can be part of that reopening of America,” she said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
