“The talent pool (for crew members) is not increasing, it’s decreasing,” said Per Bjornsen, director, V.Ships Leisure, which provides vessel management services to a number of cruise operators.

“We will have quite a challenge,” he continued. “A number of crew seem to be concerned about going aboard the ships at the moment; specifically among the Europeans.”

Getting crew onboard has also become much more time consuming, said Bjornsen, requiring a two-week quarantine onboard and multiple rounds of testing.

Handling crewing on a few ships in Europe earlier in the summer, Bjornsen explained V.Ships needed to rotate out crew members as their contracts came to an end and it was time to go home. 

“It’s very complicated, and the entire process takes much longer.

“And it is restricted by where you can get crew from,” he added. “For the ships in Europe, we mainly recruit from Europe.”

There have been some positives, however, as the industry works together, Bjornsen said, also pointing to the recruitment process going almost fully digital.

“The only way to achieve (the restart) is to work together,” he continued. “If one of us fails, we all fail. It’s so critical we share and help each other.”