Remember the time when we used to be able to show our passports, give a credit card and purchase a plane ticket to the destination of our choosing, no questions asked. The world of COVID has created a definite lack of ease when it comes to travel. For the Yacht Crew who are getting caught in the midst of COVID travel conundrums, we brought in Shawn O’brien from Global Marine Travel to shed some light on the topic, and help provide some solutions for you.

Michael –

Shawn O’Brien is a long time friend who lives and breathes this topic of international crew travel, on a day to day basis. So Shawn why don’t you tell us about you, how long you’ve been doing this and about GMT.

Shawn

I started out in travel, thinking it would simply be something I did until I figured out what exactly I wanted to do in life. And now, here it is about 40 years later. For me, “Travel” soon evolved into working with organizations that were maritime related. Then, in moving to Florida I found out about these things called yachts. I was fortunate enough to meet up with Tim Davey in 2001. Because of this, I was able to be apart of the founding of Global Marine Travel.

Throughout the history of GMT we’ve been apart of different acquisitions and mergers. The most recent one took place two years ago. We became apart of V. Ships, based out of Monaco, which has been very exciting for us. Global Marine Travel consists of a commercial side, a cruise line sector, and “the big white pretty boats,” which is what I got stuck with.

Working for GMT, as the Sales Manager of the Private Yacht Division has been amazing. It’s a marriage between aviation and maritime where there’s so much synergy, interplay, dependence, and reliance on one another. It continues to keep me interested and motivated.

When asked about effects COVID has had on Shawn’s line of work, and the challenges he’s had to face, he explained –

It’s been a wild ride. The 3rd of march the president came out with the original travel restriction orders. GMT came in on that Monday and had been inundated with ticket refund requests. Flights had been cancelled, people weren’t comfortable with traveling at that point, and the rules weren’t exactly spelled out yet. It was a few days after that, that CBP came out with their bulletin of exceptions. Seafarers were included under that, which created a window that we were looking for. Surprisingly, since then, GMT has been issuing tickets every single day. A lot of the ticket refunds are predicated on the fact that border closures are tightened and in relation with that, airlines tighten up their flights. Because they obviously aren’t going to fly empty planes or they’re restricted to.

There’ve been some interesting geographic areas that are big crew hubs. Some of these hubs are: South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the EU. Locations that are either entirely locked down or have very tightened restrictions are: South Africa, New Zealand, and Canada. Evidently these restrictions and lockdowns have greatly affected yacht operations as far as captains, management companies, and so forth goes.

Shawn explains

Management companies, captains, and owners want to find a way to work with crew a little bit more than just releasing and firing them. Another way of going about this is repatriation. But, crew obviously can’t be repatriated where there aren’t any flights, and so continues the struggle.

There are countries like South America who haven’t even allowed their own people to come back into the country. Obviously, countries like this have made things very interesting and have changed a lot of the yacht operations.

At Global Marine Travel, as we work to find solutions for yacht crew, we’ve made due with finding commercial flights. Working with certain airlines such as Qatar and Emirates, that run repatriation flights have also been a helpful solution.

Repatriation Flight – a non scheduled charter flight, operated by one of the major airlines. This type of flight can’t be scheduled by normal means of reservation. The embassy has to be contacted, and a lot more information is needed.

We use these repatriation flights to solve COVID crew travel problems whenever we can. Most of the time these flights require a lot more information than just the usual handing over of a passport and credit card. These companies want to know where the traveler’s home is, how long they’ve resided there and different things like this.

Shawn continued to focus on the fact that, “during this time, it’s really necessary to get creative. A location such as The Bahamas is a bit of a seesaw right now. So, GMT’s been using a couple of seaplane operators and local FBO’s from The Bahamas in order to creatively solve these difficult travel problems. For example, the commercial side of GMT might have 36 people originally from Romania who need to go back to their home land, and repatriate. So, they just have to get the first leg out of the Bahamas into the US, in order to make their way home.”

As a Yacht Manager, Michael has also come face to face with these crew travel conundrums.

Michael –

We at RYC had a South African crew member who had taken ill. This crew member had the unfortunate circumstance of his Schengen expiring, and his American Visa expiring. He was supposed to go to the embassy to get those visas renewed, but he had to miss the appointment because of the illness. He was going to be released from the hospital in a few days, and by that time the boat was on its way back to America. So Shawn, in this instance, what would you do?

Shawn –

First of all, don’t go to the casino anytime soon, because his luck is obviously not the best right now. There’s a lot of moving parts to that. If someone’s obligation is to repatriate and get them back to their homeland, then that’s probably the safest bet and best course of action. That is, if you can find flights for that. There’s always ways to find that repatriation flight, it’s just not typing in a format and finding the answer, as it was pre-covid.

FIRST TIME YACHT CREW SCENARIO

Michael –

Say we were someone who’s from Canada and looking to start in yachting. How do you even know where to start? Can you go to work on a boat in the US? Are you going to be able to get there? What’s a crew member’s strategy to get a job and get there.

Shawn explained that, “It’s kind of the same as before, but a lot more of it. Meaning, the documentation that you’ll be needing. These documents you’ll need on hand are: a copy of the CBP bulletins (if you’re coming to, or transiting through the US), a valid Passport and Visa, and a flight letter (from the captain or management company). You’ll also want to have the boat documentation, an employment letter (that states which boat you’re going to work on, where it’s located, and with certain contingencies that are listed), and an ESTA. And, try to get an ‘Okay to board’ letter from your local ship agent.”

“You can have all of these documentations, yet while you’re flying, you could be met with the random frailty of (for example) getting a CBP agent, Immigration agent, or airline personnel that’s had a bad day and isn’t caught up on the rules and won’t let you through. We’ve had people who have gotten all the way to the counter, then are denied boarding, and yet they try again the next day with different agents and they go through seamlessly.”

You need to assume that COVID testing is required everywhere. It usually takes 72 hrs, so you don’t want to get into a ticket that’s nonrefundable because the time it takes to get your results back can fluctuate. GMT’s agents have resources that they can use and borrow from when it comes to specifics. Such as entrance, whether there’s a quarantine period, the PCR test, whether the government provides the quarantine facilities or the individual picks them, etc.

“At the end of the day, when you see doors closing around you, open a window… you have to find ways to make it work. We can’t just sit around and wait for things to get better, now is a time to get creative with our solutions.”

Thank you Global Marine Travel, Shawn O’brien, and Julia Russel for joining us and answering our questions!

If you’re a captain, crew, or yacht owner with more questions give us a call at 954.839.6001. You can also feel free to reach out to GMT at flygmt.com.

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