Carnival hires Panama officers

The cruise company has expressed interest in increasing the number of Panamanian officers in its fleet, in which there is a large number of Panamanian-flagged ships.

In the last 18 months, approximately 31 new Panamanian officers, including women, have joined Carnival Cruise Line thanks to an integrated management program between the Panamanian Association of Navy Officers (APOM) and the personnel management of this company.

APOM representatives made a series of technical visits to promote seafarers and Panamanian human resources, this time with one of the largest cruise corporations in the world, Carnival Cruise Line.

The market research and promotion meeting in Miami, included the preparation for interviews after the seafarer update forum that took place in Panama in June 2018, in addition to the technical visit to ship owners, explained the president of APOM, Clemente Forero .

The company has indicated its interest to incorporate more Panamanians to work on the ships that are mostly in the Panamanian registry. The representatives of the company will be in the country this week conducting the interviews.

In addition to Forero, the captain Demóstenes Sánchez and the engineer Napoleón Smith participated in the meeting and technical visits. The meeting was held with the Personal Director of Carnival Cruise Line, Captain Silvio Gentile.

the company is very interested in incorporating young people who are recent graduates of Panamanian universities to their fleet, said Forero.

Each year, approximately 200 cadets graduate from the state-owned Universidad Internacional Marítima de Panamá (UMIP) and from the particular Columbus University, but only 60% of them manage to embark on ships.

In the case of the UMIP, after a student completes the theoretical and practical training of the undergraduate degrees in Nautical Engineering or in Naval Machinery, to obtain the license of merchant marine officer (official II) of the Maritime Authority of Panama , the person must complete a period or "sea time". The cadets must complete 12 months on board a ship in international waters. During this time, they must complete the ISF Training Record book to comply with the requirements of STCW Code 78 Amended.

As president of APOM, Forero emphasizes that one way to solve this problem of lack of boarding is through the purchase of a school ship or that the authorities speak to the shipping companies to get spaces on the more than 8 thousand ships with the Panamanian flag who ar on record. Of the 200 cadets who graduate each year only 40% achieve employment on a boat, according to Forero.