Cruise CEOs, Vice President Mike Pence talk COVID-19 and cruises in restart effort
CEOs from the four largest cruise companies met via phone with Vice President Mike Pence Friday in an effort to get the industry operating again.
According to a White House readout of the call, the group discussed a published proposal from Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings that the companies say will allow cruises to resume safely in the U.S. The proposal calls for 74 protocols including testing all passengers between five days and 24 hours before boarding, requiring passengers and crew members to wear masks, lowering doctor-to-passenger ratio on ships and upgrading air-conditioning systems. The industry’s lobbying group Cruise Lines International Association has said all companies are committed to requiring negative COVID-19 tests before boarding.
Companies have not provided information about what kinds of tests will be used, who will pay for the tests, and when they will be required.
On the call were Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald, Royal Caribbean Group CEO Richard Fain, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings CEO Frank Del Rio, MSC Cruises CEO Pierfrancesco Vago, and Disney Cruise Line President Thomas Mazloum, according to a readout from the White House. CDC Director Robert Redfield, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and former Utah governor Mike Leavitt, who is advising two of the companies, also joined.
According to the White House readout, the vice president’s coronavirus task force will review the proposals from the companies and from CLIA and provide a recommendation about next steps. Redfield and Azar said the federal government supports a safe restart of cruising, the readout said, “but cautioned that the cruise industry would have to backstop their venture to resume operations.” A spokesperson for the CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The meeting was originally supposed to happen on Oct. 2, but the White House rescheduled it after President Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19. Pence will be in Florida on Saturday to host a “Latinos for Trump” rally in Orlando and visit The Villages.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first banned cruises in the U.S. on March 14 and last week planned to extend its “no-sail” order to February 2021, but the White House overruled the agency. The ban is now in place until Oct. 31.
Carnival Cruise Line is the only major cruise company that plans to resume cruises as soon as Nov. 1. All other major lines have canceled U.S. cruises through November. Carnival Corp. and MSC Cruises have restarted cruises in Italy only available to Italians.
Friday’s meeting happened almost exactly seven months after Pence joined cruise CEOs, Florida senators, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and PortMiami Director Juan Kuryla at Port Everglades to bolster the companies’ decisions to keep cruising despite COVID-19 outbreaks on several ships. The industry shut down several days later on March 14.
At least 111 cruise passengers and crew have died from COVID-19, and at least 87 ships — 34% of the global cruise fleet — have been affected by the virus, according to a Miami Herald investigation. Crew members continue to contract COVID-19 on laid-up cruise ships.
At a conference earlier this week, the CEOs said they are confident that cruises will resume in the U.S. by the end of the year.
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 6:28 PM.
