A total of 154 crew from two cruise liners remained berthed at Gibraltar UK after the chartered flight for their repatriation developed technical issue on Monday, May 18.
Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas and Pullmantur's Sovereign ships were carrying out technical stops at Gibraltar (for bunkering) that also had to include the crew repatriation. One of the flights, with 164 crew aboard, left successfully to London UK.
The crew have been on board the two liners for weeks and none had any health issues or COVID symptoms. Gibraltar, like most cruise ports globally, suspended regular calls due to the ongoing pandemic.
However, the government allowed so-called ‘technical calls’ in order to enable operators to transfer crew for humanitarian and operational reasons, as well as take for refuelling and provisioning. The ships are expected to depart after the crew transfer is complete.
For Coronavirus updates on cruise ship quarantines (infected passengers and crew) and top-pandemic countries (COVID cases and deaths, daily updated statistics) see at CruiseMapper's Norovirus page.