Color Line CEO Trond Kleivdal, “The number of passengers on the Sandefjord-Strømstad route is already strongly affected by the current level of measures in Norway, and we therefore took COLOR VIKING out of service temporarily in mid-December. When Sweden now raises the level of measures and introduces new entry requirements from 28 December, we will unfortunately also have to take COLOR HYBRID out of operation for the time being. The decision will involve notice of redundancy of about 150 employees at sea and on land”

As a result of increasing infection and the emergence of the new omicron variant, the Swedish authorities have decided that all foreign travelers must submit a negative corona test upon entry into Sweden from and including Tuesday 28 December. The requirement also applies to fully vaccinated.

The decision to take COLOR HYBRID temporarily out of operation entails redundancy notice for about 150 employees at sea and on land. The notifications are in addition to the approximately 800 employees who have already been notified of redundancies as a result of the decisions to temporarily suspend COLOR VIKING and the sister ships COLOR MAGIC and COLOR FANTASY on the Oslo-Kiel route. COLOR VIKING was taken out of service on 13 December, while COLOR MAGIC will sail until 29 December and COLOR FANTASY until 10 January.