Fleet Hotspot has received the Mission to Seafarers Innovation Award for its “outstanding contribution to seafarer welfare.”
Leading ship supervisor Anglo-Eastern Ship Management has chosen Inmarsat to attach its crew.To meet the fast-evolving necessities of recent delivery, the corporate makes use of Fleet Xpress companies from Inmarsat and, in 2019, turned one of many first corporations to enroll in Inmarsat’s crew web answer, Fleet Hotspot, offering its seafarers with dependable, high-speed connectivity and the liberty to make use of their units on board. The firm doubled the free web allowance for its crew in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impression on crew welfare. In addition, yearly on the Day of the Seafarer and festive events, Anglo-Eastern will increase crew web allowance.
Captain Pradeep Chawla, managing director QHSE and coaching, Anglo-Eastern Ship Management, commented “One of our main objectives as a ship management company is to improve the quality of life at sea – and since onboard connectivity is an essential part of that, we aim to provide the crew with a quality of internet similar to what they would have on land. That is why, through Inmarsat’s Fleet Hotspot, we offer our seafarers free high-speed internet connectivity per month.”
Gert-Jan Panken, vice chairman direct gross sales, Inmarsat Maritime stated: “Offering crew a high-quality internet connection is a prudent business decision for shipping companies. Through the user-friendly Inmarsat Fleet Hotspot portal, seafarers can monitor their usage and top up their balance using their own devices. Furthermore, recent enhancements to the portal have made the solution easier to use than ever, crew can access their accounts from home and purchase data even before boarding the vessel.”
While the vast majority of land-based professionals may take office Wi-Fi with no consideration, high-quality web has historically been arduous to return by at sea. Such is the impression of Fleet Hotspot on the maritime trade that it lately received the Mission to Seafarers Innovation Award for its “outstanding contribution to seafarer welfare”. As an advocate for the well-being of maritime personnel, the Mission to Seafarers can also be a powerful proponent of onboard connectivity, and its 2021 Seafarers Happiness Index identifies the amenity as crucial to crew welfare.
Encouragingly, the delivery trade has made vital progress on this space in current occasions. In Inmarsat’s 2022 Seafarers within the Digital Age report, 78% of the shipowners surveyed stated they’d put in crew web within the final 5 years. Meanwhile, one other Inmarsat examine printed this 12 months highlighted a 149% progress in information consumption for crew welfare and connectivity functions from June 2021 to June 2022. As regards Fleet Hotspot particularly, uptake and utilization of the answer are experiencing speedy progress – and with newly launched amendments to the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 making crew connectivity a regulatory requirement, these developments look set to proceed.
“The maritime industry has been facing a serious talent crunch for some time, and the situation has only intensified by the pandemic and the resulting crew-change crisis and geopolitical uncertainty,” stated Captain Chawla. “Owners and managers are now working with a smaller pool of talent, so the competition for the best candidates is fierce. To stand out from the crowd, companies need to place as much emphasis on crew internet access as they do on business-critical connectivity – and Fleet Hotspot makes this easy.”
Fleet Hotspot is offered to all Fleet Xpress customers by the Fleet Edge platform, which supplies entry to a broad portfolio of Inmarsat connectivity companies for extra superior, environment friendly, and safe operations.
