German company, AIDA Cruises, whose ships bring around 200 thousand passengers a year to Madeira has confirmed that they will not be docking here when they resume sailing again in November. Instead, they will be offering passengers a ‘closed circuit’ cruise around the Canary Islands.
This comes a day after the President of Madeira stated that although he had hoped that the Port of Funchal would be ready to receive passenger liners from the 15th of September, successive ‘problems’ will delay the ports ability to return to normal. The problems centre around the worldwide spike in Covid-19 cases and a general uneasiness of the shipping companies to return to the seas.
Further fears are that TUI may also abandon its Madeira route.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
