Cruise lines begin dropping Middle East calls as pirate worries grow

mercedes · May 1, 2009

Britain's Fred Olsen Cruise Lines has joined MSC Cruises in saying it plans to steer clear of the waters around Somalia -- a decision that effectively means the line is dropping the Middle East as a destination.

The line this week announced its world cruise in 2010 would be re-routed to avoid the pirate-plagued northern Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden -- the latter a key waterway that cruise lines use to reposition ships between Asia and Europe.

The itinerary for the 106-night voyage on the 1,400-passenger Balmoral, scheduled to depart Dover, England on Jan. 5, 2010, no longer will include visits to Middle East ports in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Egypt as the ship returns westward from Asia to Europe.

Instead, in lieu of passing through the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea for a transit through the Suez Canal back to Europe, the ship will sail a more southerly route across the Indian Ocean from Australia to South Africa and return to the UK by way of the west coast of Africa.

"The decision to re-route Balmoral has been made in light of the continuing security problems that are being encountered in the region," the line's planning director, Matt Grimes, said this week in a statement. “We are very aware of our responsibility regarding the safety and well-being of passengers and staff on board our ships, so we have taken this step in light of the continuing piracy attacks that are being faced not only in the area around the Gulf, but ever further out from Somalia.”

The decision comes just days after pirates with automatic weapons fired upon and attempted to board the 1,062-passenger MSC Melody as it passed through the area in a brazen attack that prompted MSC's CEO to swear off cruises through the region.

MSC's Pierfrancesco Vago this week called the waters around Somalia are unsafe. "MSC will no longer take the risk," he told told travelweekly.co.uk. "I will never have a ship there again until the area is secure."

Piracy off Somalia has intensified in recent months, with more attacks against a wider range of targets, including at least two other cruise ships.

The 684-passenger Oceania Nautica, attacked on Nov. 30 by pirates in two small boats, was able to outrun its attackers, but not before they fired shots at the upscale vessel. A similar raid on Nov. 28 on Transocean Tours' 492-passenger Astor was broken up when a German naval ship fired warning shots at the attackers, sending them fleeing.