Cruise-Itinerary Disruption Recovery Leader

The mandate

Destinations may withdraw calls because of berth works, local capacity pressure and changed public-authority conditions. The operator needs one executive to restore an executable itinerary portfolio with robust substitution capability, ensuring technically feasible replacement ports have excursion depth, guest-care promises reflect understood costs, and steaming decisions balance brochure recovery against fuel, crew work and arrival reliability. With the next season already sold, the work must deliver resilience now.

Ten calendar days are available to occupy this eight-month itinerary-recovery seat, which spans the live disruption and the next deployment lock. A single decision room, validated positions for every exposed call and tiered alternatives for the 40 highest-risk port days are required by day 21. Actual call changes and two live disruption exercises must demonstrate the new discipline by month four. The closing two months put portfolio choices, port commitments and guest-remedy logic under the permanent itinerary vice president’s direction.

Recovery is accepted when every published call has a dated operability position spanning berth, nautical limit, terminal, border processing, ground transport, excursion capacity, provisioning and medical support; all priority calls have at least one executable alternative or an explicitly accepted exposure; and substitute decisions are made within six hours of a confirmed withdrawal. Two consecutive operating months must reduce late steaming, unplanned guest compensation and excursion cancellations against the agreed disruption baseline without hiding dissatisfaction through classification changes.

The interim may command the cross-functional disruption room, reserve approved contingency berth and excursion inventory, reallocate itinerary-planning capacity, and approve guest recovery or incremental voyage cost up to EUR 3 million per event within board policy. The master retains safe navigation and vessel acceptance; coastal and port authorities retain access; revenue leadership owns published pricing; and the chief executive approves cancellation of a voyage, market withdrawal or commitments above delegation.

Emergency response, evacuation command, casualty management, destination lobbying, long-range fleet deployment and wholesale guest-experience redesign are outside scope. This mandate concerns operational continuity after a destination becomes unavailable, not the life-safety assurance addressed by the fleet emergency team. The leader must not pressure a port, master or local operator to accept a call that lacks safe, lawful or socially workable capacity.

Why this seat is open

The itinerary vice president departed during a concentrated series of destination withdrawals. Marine, commercial and guest teams each optimise a legitimate outcome but nobody now owns the whole substitution decision or its downstream promise. A temporary executive is required through two seasonal gates while the board recruits a permanent portfolio leader with a redesigned authority charter.

What you will own

• Validate exposed calls across nautical access, berth, terminal, border, transport, excursion, provisioning and medical dependencies.
• Build tiered alternatives for 40 priority port days with capacity holds, release dates, economics and guest proposition explicit.
• Run a six-hour withdrawal decision room joining master input, port facts, voyage consequence and one authorised guest message.
• Reconcile fuel, speed, crew work, stores, air-sea movement, excursions, compensation and revenue effects before substitution approval.
• Exercise simultaneous port losses and distinguish a workable itinerary from a technically possible sequence of berths.
• Track actual guest, operational and margin outcomes without reclassifying avoidable disruption as weather or destination preference.
• Handover counterparty commitments, unresolved exposures, exercised playbooks and the next season's decision calendar to the successor.

Candidate qualifications

• Held itinerary, marine, hotel or integrated operations authority for a multi-vessel international cruise portfolio.
• Has rebuilt sold itineraries after ports withdrew access, infrastructure failed or local operating capacity became untenable.
• Understands berth and nautical feasibility alongside excursions, border flow, provisioning, medical support and guest promises.
• Can arbitrate voyage margin, fuel, schedule, crew and compensation tension without overriding a master's safety judgement.
• Has negotiated bounded contingency inventory with ports and destination operators across at least three cruise regions.
• Delivered executive handover across successive seasons with decision rights, commitments and hidden itinerary exposures intact.