Crew Change – Challenging but Necessary

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been working round-the-clock to mediate between governments, shipowners, crew and stakeholders to coordinate the safe movement of our seafarers to join and leave our managed vessels.

Crew changes have been made extremely difficult by lockdowns imposed by governments as they are all different and fluid, making it impossible to fix timelines. All these challenges were met

by our steadfast employees working from home!

We are still working collectively with other ship managers to pool our resources for crew changes so that we can achieve further more as community than we could alone.

We have taken part in the Shipping Alliance Crew Corridors Project and we have engaged with industry peers in developing a safe crew mobilization protocol in Philippines, which we have currently put into practice, ensuring that our crew deploys and returns home safely and swiftly.

We have also done significant work with FOSMA, Indian Shipping Directorate and Indian Unions to create crew mobilisation protocols and find ways of flying crew out of India on special flights.

With more locations opening up for crew changes and restrictions relaxing, we are looking into every opportunity for crew change consolidation with a possibility of chartering flights from common locations or commercial flights.

In coming weeks, we will see very intense activity in planning and performing crew changes. We keep our onboard crew frequently updated on crew change progress reports.

Open and transparent communication from top management is key for seafarer mental health and enables the provision of uniform, reliable company information within a climate of disinformation.

Morale and seafarer wellbeing are supported through our mental health campaign and intervessel competitions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the entire world population. However, some parts of the community are more vulnerable to the fallout of the pandemic. We have seen and heard many stories of sacrifice, perseverance, sufferings and concerns of the future as the uncertainty continues. There is something we can do to make tomorrow, a little brighter for these people.