Thought of the Day - October 13 - Breakers Yard Boom

Cruise liners are laid up around the world and unlike grounded planes it is not just a simple matter of finding a sheltered place to park. There are not enough available berths, but more importantly cruise ships are not designed to be turned off and left at the pier. For a "cold layup" they need significant decommissioning work and then still require at least 10 full-time staff to do preventive maintenance; any less and they decay rapidly. The other option is a "warm layup". Larger ships required over 100 crew to keep things ticking over; ready to move from anchor if a storm is in the offing. Carnival, the world's largest cruise-line, reckons their idled ships are costing $250M a month in operating expenses.

No wonder the sinking of the global cruise liner industry due to COVID has sent dozens of luxury ships to breakers yards. In this way they can avoid these staggering operating costs as well as recoup the scrap value. Many of these ships actually had 2021 bookings, but with aborted attempts to prematurely restart the industry, cruise lines need the cash to stay afloat ( Thought of the Day - August 5 - Holy Cruise Line Batman ).

But one industries' loss is another's gain. Turkey alone is breaking up 19 of the behemoths. One shipyard in Allaga is now producing over a million tons of scrap steel a month. This is up 30% from the beginning of the year, and more notably, at that time their business was largely from cargo ships not liners. The same is true for Alang, India or Gadani, Pakistan.

To me the most amazing thing is still reading the Cruise Line rhetoric - "most cruise lines voluntarily paused sailings for the meantime after being faced with port closures; a lack of suitable infrastructure, including flights; and decreased travel restrictions that change on a country-by-county basis" says the Cruise Line International Association - Wow!

There are a number companies still willing to take your money. Book now for 2020 excursions such as:

• Aqua Expeditions: Indonesia - now.

• Bahamas Paradise: Grand Celebration - November 4.

• Carnival: Miami - November 1 (potentially).

• Costa - Italy - Delizlosa, Diadema - now, Smerelda October, Firenze - December.

• Disney - Magic, Wonder, Dream, Fantasy - December.

• Dream Cruises - Taiwan - now.

• Hapag-Lloyd Cruises - Europe - Europa 2, Hanseatic, Nature - now.

• Marella Cruises: November.

• Metropolitan Touring - Galapagos - now.

• MSC Cruises: Grandiosa - now (EU residents only).

• Norwegian Cruise Line - December.

• Oceania Cruises - December.

• Quark Expeditions - Now.

• Regent - December.

• Royal Caribbean - Singapore - December.

• Silversea: Cloud - December.

• Star Clippers - November.

• Tauck - November.

• Variety - Greece - now.

To be fair most of the fleet of the large players: Carnival, Royal Caribbean, MSC and Norwegian, that sport the large ships and attract "less healthy" clientele, have no planned cruises for 2020.

A growing list of companies have declared bankruptcy:

• Blont Small ship Adventures.

• Cruise & Maritime Voyages.

• Pullmantur Cruises.

While still others that restarted operations had COVID-19 outbreaks so were forced to "voluntarily pause operations" yet again:

• Hurtigruten.

• Paul Gauguin.

• UnCruise Adventures.

I guess, along the lines of the infamous "flights to nowhere" offered by Quantas, Eva Air, HKExpress, and others, some people are really missing cruising.

Cheers

Cliff