About 120 travelers who were stranded on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen due to the pilot strike at the Scandinavian airline SAS can sail on a cruise ship from Tui Cruises. In addition to Australians, Colombians, Danes, Germans and French, some compatriots will also board. Seven travelers are under the age of 14.
The ‘Mein Schiff 3’ will leave for the south tonight. Most additional travelers will sail to Tromso, in the north of Norway. Sixteen others remain on board as far as Bremerhaven, in northern Germany. That is also the final stop of the journey.
100 euros per night
“The passengers picked up pay about 100 euros per night on the ship, including food and drinks,” said a spokeswoman for the cruise line. Tui Cruises does not know whether SAS will reimburse those costs. The cruise ship has approximately 1,580 cabins. Some of it was not occupied.
Spitsbergen is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean and is part of Norway. The archipelago consists of more than 400 islands and has about 2,500 inhabitants.
Strike interrupted
Meanwhile, SAS pilots have announced that they will suspend their strike on Monday to fly people and goods to Spitsbergen. They do this because the population of the archipelago is strongly affected by the strike: most flights to and from Spitsbergen are operated by SAS.
The pilots have been on strike since last Monday after wage negotiations failed. They had previously said they would help stranded passengers in remote destinations home.
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss a thing from the stars.