Thomas Cook chief executive Manny Fontenla Novoa has praised the efforts of Celebrity Cruises as its new £500 million ship returned to Southampton with UK holidaymakers caught up in the ash crisis.
The ship, which cancelled a planned two-night trade and past customer cruise to rescue 2,000 stranded Brits on Thomas Cook, Tui and The Co-operative Travel holidays from Bilbao, will be officially named in the UK port tomorrow.
Fontenla-Novoa, Thomas Cook group chief executive, said the rescue mission was a great example of how the UK industry worked in partnership to get people home.
“We are enormously grateful to Celebrity Cruises for helping us in our efforts to get Thomas Cook customers back home safely. Our teams in the UK and abroad have been working around the clock to repatriate our customers as quickly as possible and this is another great example of how we have worked with our travel partners to achieve this.
“The UK travel industry and I’m sure the customers who travelled home on her will always remember the arrival of Celebrity Eclipse into service and this unique voyage,” he said.
In addition to working with the tour operators, the cruiseline made 50 cabins available to Britons identified as having to urgently return to the UK in partnership with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s crisis team in Madrid.
Jo Rzymowska, general manager, UK & Ireland Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises & Azamara Club Cruises said:
“We are absolutely delighted to have worked with our travel partners during these unprecedented times. And we are looking forward to hosting or trade partners on Celebrity Eclipse this weekend.”
Eclipse will be named on Saturday in Southampton by Godmother Emma Pontin, ocean-racing yachtswoman and breast cancer survivor.
The naming celebration will coincide with a charity power walk in aid of the breast cancer charity Walk the Walk – the Celebrity SunWalk will see men and women in decorated bras walking a 5km and 10km route through Southampton finishing in front of the new ship to raise awareness, and money.
Eclipse is the first of Celebrity Cruises’ ships to be based out of Southampton where it will cruise from throughout the summer to the Mediterranean and Canary Islands.