Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings are teaming up to form a best practices group with the hopes of the cruise industry getting back to sailing in a world with COVID-19.
The two parent companies include cruise lines Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania, Regent Seven Seas, Silversea and Azamara.
The “Healthy Sail Panel” aims to get cruise industry standards in line for a safe return to sailing despite the threat of coronavirus. The co-chairs of the new panel are former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who served as administrator of the EPA and Secretary of U.S. Department Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush, and Dr. Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2017-19.
“We view our work as a profoundly important public health effort. The health and safety of passengers, crew, and the communities that cruise ships visit will be the principal focus of this project,” Gottlieb said in a press release. “We know that the public health issues that must be addressed are complex, and in some areas, tackling them will require novel approaches. Our goal in assembling this team of leading experts was to develop best practices that can improve safety and provide a roadmap for reducing the risks of COVID-19.”
The panel has already been working for nearly a month and will have initial recommendations by the end of August, according to the release. The companies also said the panel’s work would be open for adoption by other cruise companies or any other industry that could benefit from its findings.
“This unprecedented disease requires us to develop unprecedented standards in health and safety,” said Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain. “Bringing aboard these respected experts to guide us forward demonstrates our commitment to protecting our guests, our crews and the communities we visit.”
The cruise industry ground to a halt in March and remain under a no-sail order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that expires later this month, but members of the trade group Cruise Lines International Association have voluntarily suspended sailing until at least mid-September while some lines have already canceled sailings until October.
“We compete for the vacationing consumer’s business every day, but we never compete on health and safety standards,” said Frank Del Rio, president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings. “While the cruise industry has always had rigorous health standards, the unique challenges posed by COVID-19 provide an opportunity to raise the bar even higher.”
Any return to sailing will require cruise lines to submit plans to the CDC for approval.
“Health and safety are the highest priority for all CLIA cruise line members as demonstrated by this initiative on the part of two of our largest members,” said CLIA President and CEO Kelly Craighead. “We commend this and parallel efforts of all of our members, large and small, who are working tirelessly to develop appropriate protocols based on input from health authorities and medical experts in the U.S. and abroad.”
Other panel members include Dr. Helene Gayle, current CEO of the Chicago Community Trust and former president and CEO of humanitarian organization CARE with experience with the CDC and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Dr. Julie Gerberding, executive vice president and chief patient officer for Merck and former head of the CDC; Dr. Steven Hinrichs, a professor and chair in the Department of Pathology and Microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center as well as director of the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory and director of the University of Nebraska Center for Biosecurity; Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota; Dr. Stephen Ostroff, who was acting commissioner of the FDA from 2015-2016 with experience at the CDC; William Rutala, an expert in epidemiology and virology with a focus on outbreaks and emerging pathogens; Kate Walsh, dean at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University; Captain Patrik Dahlgren, the senior vice president of Global Marine Operations and Fleet Optimization at Royal Caribbean Group; and Robin Lindsay, the executive vice president of Vessel Operations for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.
