JAPANESE-CONTROLLED Ocean Network Express (ONE) said that around 15 per cent of its fleet of containerships made extra calls last year to conduct crew changes.

The crew change crisis, which engulfed the shipping industry left over 400,000 seafarers stranded on vessels after their contracts expired at its height in 2020, remains a major issue today for shipowners and managers, with an ever change mix of complex travel restrictions from countries across the globe.

Shipowners and managers have taken to charter flights and additional ports of call in an effort to repatriate crew and allow new seafarers to join in their place.

In a presentation on its initiatives to tackle issues in container shipping brought on by the covid-19 pandemic ONE said around 15 per cent of its operating vessels had conducted extra calls for crew change in cooperation with shipowners/crew in 2020, according to Colchester's Seatrade Maritime News.

However. the problem continues to persist and recently ONE joined the Neptune Declaration along with 326 other companies and organisations in the shipping industry.

"With the launch of the Neptune Declaration on Seafarer Wellbeing and Crew Change, we're joining stakeholders from across the global maritime value chain to establish a collaborative and multi-stakeholder response needed to solve the international crew change crisis," said Jeremy Nixon, CEO of ONE.

"We must protect the two million seafarers across the world's oceans and recognise the critical role they play as "key workers" in the front line in transporting humanitarian products and protecting the global economy."