Carnival Cruise Line has sent out a letter to crew members detailing the current situation and basic salary payments.
Letter from Christine Duffy to the Crew
Carnival Cruise Line president Christine Duffy has sent out a letter to crew members which details the current situation on the fleet and about a base salary.
Those crew members who have worked for the cruise line for 2 years and more will be able to receive a base salary whether being onboard, signed off early, or even at home unable to join the ship. This comes after a lot of thought into how the crew can be supported in a fair way.
Also Read: 7 Things Carnival Is Doing to Survive the Suspension
It’s been made clear that even though there was an announcement that eight cruise ships would begin sailing in August it’s not guaranteed this will happen. In the letter, it says “while we hope to bring back a small number of ships on August 1, that is still very uncertain. What we do know is that whenever we resume cruising, it will be a gradual, phased-in return.”
The letter continues to “we are also down to safe operational manning levels across the fleet as we look to lay up ships as we wait to return to operations” We already know that the cruise line has suspended cruises the majority of the fleet until the end of August and that is dependent on the situation in certain countries along with travel restrictions and the “No-Sail Order” from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Carnival has been putting a lot of effort to support the well over 29,000 crew members. Most of the coverage has been focused on repatriating them back home which first started with charter flights arranged by the cruise line. It then moved into a new phase with 12 Carnival cruise ships sailing to different regions of the world to get the crew back home.
Here’s our post just after Carnival announced that eight cruise ships would repatriate crew members which didn’t include the vessels based in Australia.
Carnival Cruise Line has provided the crew with details on how they will be paid during this very difficult time. The support for salary will be for those who have worked for the company 2 years starting from the date of the first contract.
Here’s the basic salary structure detailed:
- 2-9 years: 30 days of non-function wage or base salary, depending on the crew member’s position
- 10-19 years: 45 days of non-function wage or base salary, depending on the crew member’s position.
- 20+ years: 60 days of non-function wage or base salary, depending on the crew member’s position.
- There will be a minimum payment of $750 USD for all positions that had sign on dates between May 7 and April 11.
It does depend on the position a crew member has for the salary. The payments will be made to a bank account or a Brightwell account no later than May 22, 2020. You can read the letter in full below:
It’s also important to just think of the essential crew who still remain onboard to keep the ships maintained until cruises get back going again. Being away from family at any time is difficult but during these times more than ever.