The owning company of the UK cruise brand, Cruise & Maritime Voyages (CMV), has been placed in administration
In a statement, South Quay Travel Limited (SQTL), trading under the CMV name, said it was placed in administration on 20th July, 2020, according to a statement.
Paul Williams, Phil Dakin and Edward Bines of Duff & Phelps were appointed SQTL’s Joint Administrators.
At present they are evaluating SQTL’s financial position, the company said.
All of CMV’s future cruises have been cancelled with immediate effect.
The company was known to have tried to raise finance for several weeks but nothing came of its efforts.
In mid-June, the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) detained five of the company’s six cruise ships, ‘Astor’, ’Astoria’, ’Columbus’, ’Vasco da Gama’ and ’Marco Polo’, due to deficiencies under the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC).
However, CMV’s other cruise ship, ‘Magellan’, was not detained.
Due to the most of the crew being stranded in the UK, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) eventually stepped to assist around 1,500 crew members’ repatriation to countries, including Indonesia, India, Myanmar, and Mauritius.
At the time of the administration order, CMV operated five of the cruise ships, with a sixth – ’Astoria’ on charter that was due to end in 2021.
In addition, the company had agreed to acquire two ships next year from P&O Cruises Australia, the ‘Pacific Aria’ and ‘Pacific Dawn’.
German sister company TransOcean Tours was thought to be facing the same fate.
CMV is the largest of the three cruise companies to fail thus far this year, due to COVID-19, following Pullmantur (three ships) and Birka Cruises (one ship).
All three of Pullmantur’s cruise ships have been reportedly sold to Turkish breakers.
Current CMV Fleet:
- Astoria (550 Berths, 1948 Built)- laid up at Tilbury (UK) – thought to be under negotiations for recycling.
- Astor (590 Berths, 1987 Built) – laid up at Tilbury- Due to be transferred to TransOcean.
- Vasco da Gama (1,266 Berths, 1992 Built) – laid up at Tilbury.
- Columbus (1,400 Berths, 1988 Built) – Laid up at Tilbury.
- Magellan (1,250 Berths, 1985 Built) – Laid up at Tilbury.
- Marco Polo (800 Berths, 1965 Built) – Laid up at Avonmouth (Bristol).
