With the new coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) variant starting to spread, many companies are bracing themselves for a possible prolonged lockdown and the likelihood of the current crew change crisis turning for the worse.

One manning company, however, sounded positive, indicating that the industry is in a better position now to cope with the challenges posed by the new variant which many medical experts believed to be more contagious than the one that originated from Wuhan, China.