In light of the COVID-19 outbreak and the restrictions that has brought, Wallem’s CEO, Frank Coles urges shipping industry to join forces and come up with a strategic solution soonest possible within the next 6-9 months.
‘’We are barely scratching the surface of the crew change requirements. More charter flights are cancelled than fly. We need the military, we need a Berlin airlift logistics operation to solve this problem. We need competent governments and leadership in the countries that need to be a part of the solution. ‘’ he commented on Linkedin on the occasion of the recent ITF announcement.
Mr Coles says it is now time for a plan for the next months; industry’s top priority should be how the crews will operate in 6 to 9 months. There are 1.2m seafarers at sea, and 600,000 at home and therefore, a matrix compliance ensuring a mix of familiar and new crews on the ships worldwide is vital. All the rest are just noise.
Mr Coles blamed the incompetence of the world government leadership for the situation.
‘’The naïve firefighting of COVID instead of strategic thinking of the global situation has meant the ticking time bomb is now approaching its top dead center’’ he stated.
Mr Coles noted that the problem lies at the logistics; now there are 400,000 seafarers who need to return back to their homes and in a couple of months it will be 500,000. However, industry must take action to rotate the 1.8m seafarers effectively in order operations to continue smoothly.
For this, governments should start action immediately; otherwise, we won’t have enough seafarers to do the rotations. ‘’We obviously cannot just send everyone home at the same time, so some will be forced to extend even further. The longer this is left, the worse this is going to get.’’ he urged.
Lastly, Mr Coles suggested to put discussions aside and countries work together to sort this humanitarian crisis out.
‘’This is going to become a mental health disaster. It is already a human rights abuse case on an unacceptable scale. It will develop into a trade disaster and supply chain mess.’’ he concluded, highlighting that even though ports have been opened, and crews are allowed to be changed, since there are no planes to facilitate the process, this needs a modern day “Berlin airlift” to take place.