GMT Plays Critical Role in Crew Repatriations for Crystal Cruises

23rd May 2022

Global Marine Travel’s role in the maritime ecosystem and primary objective is to fly people from their homes, to wherever their vessel is around the world, and back again.

We book travel for cruise line crew, cruise line passengers, drydock workers, commercial crew, private yacht crew, seaman working offshore, including all shore-based support companies who may have surveyors, technical representatives, brokers, and executive travellers going to/from their vessels.

Our focus is specialized marine and offshore airline ticketing through over 100+ commercial airlines in economy, business or first class, but our team can also arrange charter aircraft when needed for larger crew movements, smaller private jets, work boats, helicopters, hotels, car rentals – you name it.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, GMT has been applauded for multiple large crew movements – often working behind the curtain as a key supplier to various cruise lines.

Recently, V.Ships, the world’s largest vessel manager, was appointed by the bank to take over and manage two of Crystal Cruises’ ships after they were forced to suspend operations. Two of the cruise ships were based in the Bahamas and together V.Ships Leisure and GMT’s executive team spoke to the crew, looked after their well-being, and began working on a plan to get them repatriated home as soon as possible.

GMT’s Founder and Managing Director, Tim Davey, flew out personally for the first set of repatriations where he conducted multiple Q&A sessions and made sure every crew member who left ship had their salary paid before disembarking and made it safely back to their home countries.

It took GMT a total 6 weeks from start to finish in both February and March to repatriate the bulk of the Crystal Serenity and Crystal Symphony ship’s crew.

Both ships have been taken to a minimal manning level and are now waiting for interested parties to look at purchasing the vessels. The crew that remain onboard are busy keeping it running and are still in pristine condition.

Tim Davey, who has seen everything first-hand and helped get the crew paid said, “the bank has been admirable and has not done anything in a cheap way. They are concerned about the welfare of their asset and eventually want to attract the same crew back when there is a new buyer.”

Normally there are around 300 crew onboard on each vessel but the banks have decided to leave approximately 100 onboard for minimum manning which is more than the required minimum of about 30.

Work onboard consists of engine room maintenance, keep the water running, galleys clean, exterior clean, rust spots taken care of, routine maintenance, carrying out the normal day-to-day without passengers onboard or excess of crew.

GMT’s responsibilities since repatriating the bulk of the crew now consist of the regular crew rotations which requires the senior level crew staying onboard and rotating in and out based on their various contract periods. “This is great for the ships because they are getting back the captains who know the vessels, not starting from scratch,” says Tim.

Once certain debts have been settled, the ships are then cleared to be sold – first going to auction and then the door opens to other interested buyers.

Tarryn Botes, Crew Accountant of the M/S Crystal Symphony said, “Just wanted to say thank you so much for the Charter flight for Symphony. Everything went very well and we managed to make a big movement go very smoothly. Mark was very helpful and I appreciate your team for all the flight assistance, they are great at what they do!”

Contact us 24/7/365 if you need assistance with any upcoming crew movements. We specialize in one-off, dry-dock, new-build or regular crew rotations.