Port Of Athens News

Greek cruise lines hope a swifter vaccination rollout and the government’s proposed vaccine certificates scheme can help get ships out of the docks where they have been idling empty for the past year and back to sea for the vital summer season.With international travel now at a near-standstill, saving at least part of the summer season will be vital, said George Koumpenas, Chief Operating Officer for Celestyal Cruises, a medium-sized operator that offers trips to the Aegean and…

Twelve crew members of a cruise ship that docked at Piraeus port near Athens on Tuesday tested negative for the novel coronavirus in repeat checks by Greek health authorities, the ship's operator TUI Cruises said.The Mein Shiff 6 cruise ship had departed from Heraklion in Crete on Sunday with all 922 passengers having tested negative before boarding.But sample tests on 150 members out of the ship's total crew of 666, conducted at a land lab, detected 12 COVID-19 infections.Sailing off the island of Milos, the cruise liner made its way back to Piraeus, the country's biggest port, with better access to health services and equipped to deal with any emergency.

A cruise ship carrying about 920 passengers was expected to dock at Piraeus port near Athens, after 12 of its crew members tested positive for the coronavirus, an official at Greece's Civil Protection agency said on Monday.The Mein Shiff 6, operated by TUI Cruises, departed from Heraklion in Crete on Sunday with all passengers having tested negative before boarding.But sample tests on 150 crew members out of a total of 666, detected 12 infections. The ship's operators TUI Cruises said six of the 12 had since tested negative."They are all asymptomatic," the civil protection official said.

Greece is considered to be the world’s first ship-owning country in terms of tonnage. The Greeks are known to control 17.7% of world fleet and gaining share except in crude tankers. Even recession in the dry bulk market has not had much effect on the Greek-owned fleet with the fleet size touching 5,226 vessels last year with a total DWT of 334 million. For debt-laden Greece, shipping – a key element of Greek economic activity since ancient times – is considered a knight in shining armor at this crucial juncture. Most Greek shipping companies are family owned businesses which have been in shipping for many decades, even over a hundred years.

Arrivals of refugees and migrants to Greece from Turkey rose sharply on Wednesday, just over a week since the European Union and Turkey struck a deal intended to cut off the flow. Greek authorities recorded 766 new arrivals between Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning, up from 192 the previous day. Most arrived on the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos. Italy reported an even larger jump in arrivals on Tuesday, when officials there said 1,350 people - mostly from Africa - were rescued from small boats taking the longer migration route over the Mediterranean as the weather warmed up. The EU Commission said on Tuesday that the flows in the last week had reduced…

China's COSCO already the sole bidder for Greece's Piraeus Port. Buying both would give COSCO a European transhipment hub. China's COSCO is expected to make an offer for Greece's rail network after becoming the sole bidder for the country's largest port, two people familiar with the matter said, as the state owned shipping giant forges ahead with a plan to build a European transhipment hub. Buying TRAINOSE and Piraeus Port would give COSCO maritime connections to the Suez Canal and rail links to the Balkans and central and Eastern Europe. Bolstered by December's merger with China Shipping Group , COSCO's focus on Greece is about building market share at a time of anguish in a bruised and oversupplied shipping sector, industry sources said.

Placards in hand, travel agent Iakovos Bouchoris and his team scout for customers at Greece's busy Piraeus port, near Athens, where some 5,000 people arrived on Tuesday in a single day on ships from outlying islands close to Turkey. Instead of the usual groups of German, Italian and Korean tourists, the tour operators were waiting for Syrian refugees; and rather than touring the ancient ruins of the Greek capital, they were heading north to the Greek-Macedonian border. Greece's peak holiday season may have ended in August, but for many travel agents, business is booming in October. "We've been filling 20 to 25 buses a day, about 1,250 people a day," Bouchoris said, recalling a peak in early September.