As Covid-19 spread at the start of 2020, the modern, globalized economy began to shudder to a halt.
Shops shut their doors. Factory production lines grew silent. The world’s vast armada of airliners stayed stationary in quiet airports – at least for the most part. And the cruise ship industry started to close down operations to avoid spreading the disease.
But Covid-19 spread remorselessly. Within weeks the cruise industry faced the spectre of much more serious challenges.
By March, anxiety over cancelled cruises was replaced with the very real possibility of entire cruise lines going under unless they could cut costs. One of the simplest ways to do this was to prune their fleets – by sending the oldest ships to the scrapyard.