Havila Voyages has given a photo update of one of its first two ships designated for Norwegian coastal service, the Havila Capella.
“The Havila Capella looking sharp with a splash of paint!” the cruise line wrote in a July 9 Facebook post accompanying new photos of the 468-passenger vessel.
The first two ships – the Havila Capella and Havila Castor – are still at the Tersan Yard in Turkey where they are being built. Their estimated delivery date is the end of August.
“We plan according to the initial schedule,” Tor Johan Pedersen, Havila’s senior vice president, sales and marketing, told Cruise Industry News on July 2.
“As you probably know, there are always some uncertainties in the closing stages, so it is impossible to be 100-percent sure on anything,” he added, wary that the cruise line might sustain another coronavirus-induced delay at the shipyard.
Havila Voyages, a Norwegian shipping company, won a contract from the Norwegian government in 2018 to provide coastal transportation service with four ships, splitting the coastal service deal with Hurtigruten.
Havila’s first two ships were meant to start fully operating in January 2021, but that deadline moved twice: first to spring 2021 in December 2020 and then to summer 2021 in January 2021.
The other two ships – the Havila Polaris and Havila Pollux – are scheduled to start operating in the first half of 2022.
According to Pedersen, Havila won’t have to worry about staffing their four ships up, as it will be receiving Hurtigruten’s staff.
“It’s a kind of business transfer… As soon as we enter operation, between 300 and 400 Hurtigruten employees will be there for us,” Pedersen said.
He explained: “Hurtigruten has a contract with the Norwegian Ministry of Transportation, so, all in all, there are 11 ships. Today Hurtigruten has a monopoly situation on that. But from 2021, it’s sharing the operations with us. They are taking four ships out of business, on the Bergen-Kirkenes-Bergen itineraries, and we are adding four ships. So, it will still be 11 ships but shared. Most of the staff from the four ships going out of Hurtigruten is being transferred to Havila.”
“There are, of course, some who are quitting and doing different things, but the majority of staff from those ships will be transferred over to us,” he added.
According to Pedersen, sailing with Havila has several advantages.
“We will introduce completely new ships, the newest and most innovative vessels operating along the coastline. It’s an innovation when it comes to fuel as well because we will have a hybrid, powered only by LNG and batteries,” he said, adding that the battery packs will be the largest in the world on such ships. “This means that we will be able to sail up to four hours, only on battery. Zero emissions, zero sound, so I think the customer experience when traveling with us will be fantastic,” Pedersen added.
He also said that Havila’s staterooms are larger than those of their “competitors along the coastline.”
