Shipbreaking: The last chapter of a cruise liner
in Maritime Knowledge by Tanja Lohrmann
With the global pandemic and another global recession looming on the horizon, luxury is the first thing to go. The luxury cruise industry is struggling. The situation is the worst that tourism has faced since the 9/11 attacks. The idea of being confined to a tiny room in a ship infested with coronavirus is an especially unappealing image. The demands for cruise liners have sharply plummeted, many workers have been laid off and divisions shut down. Quite obviously the ships are sold as is evident from the case of Pullmantur Cruises which operated from Spain and had a substantial fleet of cruise ships. After around 150 crew members of one of the ships, the MS Horizon, tested positive for the coronavirus, the company was forced to halt operations. Its ships, the MS Sovereign and MS Monarch were stripped of valuables and sold for scrap. But what happened to the glamorous ship after it outlived its usefulness?
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