CLIA anticipates talks with CDC on return to the sea

MSC Magnifica at anchor in Queensferry Edinburgh

Days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) extended the No Sail Order for cruise ships from U.S. ports through September, CLIA expressed confidence that it was close to starting a meaningful dialogue with the agency about resuming sailings. 

CLIA global chair Adam Goldstein said that so far, its engagement with the CDC has focused mostly on the health and repatriation of crew members who were still aboard ships in U.S. waters. 

The CDC had not thus far engaged meaningfully with CLIA and the industry about resuming service, Goldstein said, but he was encouraged that would begin, citing commentary in the No Sail Order extension that indicated “a willingness for information exchange and development of approaches beyond what we had seen from them before.”

CLIA was also encouraged that its voluntary suspension through Sept. 15 closely aligned with the CDC’s No Sail Order extension to Sept. 30.

“The fact that we’re beginning to converge makes us more optimistic that the kind of engagement we’re looking for with the CDC as our regulator will begin in the near future and will allow their experts, our experts, our operations personnel, our leaders and their leaders to have the kind of dialogue that will result in the safe and successful resumption of service,” Goldstein said. 

According to CLIA, being involved in such high-level talks with regulators in Europe has helped enable the resumption of limited cruise operations in Germany and Norway. 

“The EU has engaged with us fairly intensively through multiple rounds of discussion to work toward an EU guidance permitting national regulators to adopt appropriate regulations, which, in combination with our protocols, we believe is what put Germany and Norway in a condition to restart under the limited conditions,” Goldstein said. 

CLIA believes more European countries in the near term may also begin limited cruise operations. 

“This is a reflection of one of the expectations we’ve had for a couple months now -- that cruising would restart in kind of a sequential manner,” Goldstein said. 

CLIA’s primary focus is still on its members’ primary source market, North America, and most popular destinations: the Caribbean, Alaska, Bermuda and Mexico. Goldstein said that CLIA and the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association are in dialogue with destinations around North America “to work toward alignment” on how they can confidently open up to cruise ship visits.

“In order for the North American cruise market to regenerate, two things need to be true: The cruise industry needs approval from the CDC to resume operations in and out of the U.S., and the ports of call need to accept the ships,” Goldstein said. “This critical work will take time, but it is in everyone’s interest to come to a mutually agreeable approach.” 

In what seemed to be a response to the CDC’s citing a lack of consensus among cruise lines and the need for additional industry-led efforts regarding safely resuming passenger operations, Goldstein said that over the next weeks and months, CLIA expects to emerge with one or more policies that members will eventually sign onto in response to the pandemic.

“Our goal remains to emerge with a unified approach policy-wise across the associations that all member lines will sign up for,” he said. “I can’t tell you when that will occur or the steps that will get us there.”