2023 has been one of our busiest for travel, with Flyhouse crews setting sail on cruise ships all over the world.
One big reason is the return to training on Royal Caribbean ships, after reduced service the past few years. By the end of this year, our crews will have visited 20 of Royal’s fleet and provided basic safety training, with plans to expand the training next year.
While Flyhouse’s team of ETCP Recognized trainers have traveled to nearly every corner of the world, we try to minimize travel, arranging to meet multiple ships at each port over a series of days. Recently, a trainer traveled to Juneau, Alaska to train on three different Royal Caribbean ships. On his day off between ships, a Celebrity ship in need of repair came into Juneau and our trainer was able to help there as well.
Another cruise ship partner, Celebrity, currently has 39 Flyhouse hoists in service, 33 of which are being refurbished this year. Many of these hoists were installed in 2015 and are ready for expanded service because of the demands of their non-stop use. To help prepare for the extensive work, we sent our Flyhouse technicians involved in this project to The Studio by Celebrity (their on-shore rehearsal hall), for a practice run. Over the course of a week, we tested our plans, familiarized technicians about working on a ship, and planned exactly which tools we should send to the ships.
In addition to all these cruise ship projects, we have Flyhouse hoists on four different Costa Cruises vessels. These also require semi-annual inspections and crew training.
