German tour operator FTI Group has announced it will end its cruise line as part of a group-wide restructuring triggered by the global COVID-19 pandemic. FTI Cruises, with one cruise ship, will cease operations on November 1st.
The tour operator purchased its 9,500-gross-ton cruise ship, the Berlin, in August 2011, launching its FTI Cruises line. The ship, with a capacity for 420 passengers, was marketed primarily to German-speaking customers. It operated cruises in the Caribbean, as well as the Mediterranean and Europe. In addition to cruises aboard the Berlin, FTI also marketed cruises on a number of other ships in the cruise line.
The company has officially decided to discontinue the FTI Cruises brand effective November 1, the end of its current fiscal year. No decision has been made regarding the future of the Berlin cruise ship, last refurbished in 2017, which has been docked in Málaga since it suspended cruises last March.
The ship was originally operated by another German tour company, Delimann, and was sold in 2004 to the British cruise operator Saga Cruises, which managed it for the next seven years as the Spirit of Adventure. It returned to the German market as the FTI Berlin after FTI acquired the ship in 2011.
FTI Cruises had only published cruises up to October 2020 and the Berlin was scheduled to sail in northern Europe during the summer, before moving to the Mediterranean in the fall and to the Caribbean for the winter.
