1,468 Pinoy seafarers arrive for home quarantine

MANILA, Philippines — Amid the pandemic, 1,468 Filipino seafarers arrived yesterday at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) from various countries, and they would be placed on 14-day quarantine as part of precautionary measures against the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

An estimated 4,000 seafarers are also expected to arrive in the coming days until next week.

Some 881 Filipino seamen arrived at NAIA early Wednesday on two chartered Ethiopian Airlines flights from Orlando, Florida.

They included 436 crewmembers of the cruise ships Costa Favolosa and Costa Magica and 445 seafarers from Norwegian Cruises’ ships Dawn and Encore.

The charter planes parked quite a distance from Terminal 1 and were met by representatives of the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Health and Transportation, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ), Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) and immigration officials who processed their travel documents.

The temperature of the seafarers was checked by quarantine staff using portable scanners before they were allowed to board buses for their quarantine facilities.

Local manning agency Philippine Transmarine Carriers is still negotiating with the BOQ on a designated quarantine site due to the large number of Mediterrean Shipping Co. crew that also arrived on board separate commercial flights.

Meanwhile, two more batches of seafarers were expected to arrive Wednesday afternoon: the MSC lines from Miami, M/V Divina, M/V Marigivilla and M/V Arminain on a KLM charter with 446 passengers on board.

From Sao Paolo, Brazil, 88 crew of M/V Seaview were scheduled to arrive on board a regular Qatar Airways flight at around 4:30 p.m.

Sources said the newly arrived seafarers would be billeted in hotels in Manila for their 14-day quarantine period.

Most of the seafarers have been isolated for the past three weeks on board their ships.

Philippine Airlines (PAL) will mount a single round trip flight from Manila to London on Saturday to transport British citizens and bring back Filipino passengers on the return flight. – With Pia Lee-Brago