Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, seafarers are having to extend their service onboard ships after many months at sea, unable to be replaced following long tours of duty or return home, as flights to repatriate or onboard crew continue to be unavailable.

The shipping industry need governments to support our seafarers and aid their safe return home to their families to be replaced with crew ready to continue to keep supply chains open. Shipping is vital to the maintenance of global supply chains, but the current situation is unsustainable for the safety and wellbeing of ships’ crews and the safe operation of vessels.

Nitin Mehta, CEO ‘’ Seafarers are unrecognized heroes who everyday throughout this COVID-19 crisis are going above and beyond the call of duty. Together with our industry peers it’s our view that the recent EU guidelines should be adopted on a global basis, failure to acknowledge that seafarers are key workers will have a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of our crew as well as a detrimental impact on global trade, the shipping industry facilitates the movement of 90% of the worlds goods”.