Berths dispute leaves liner waiting in Grand Harbour

The Spanish cruise liner Gran Mistral, which calls at Malta regularly on its Mediterranean and Aegean Sea cruises, had to wait for about 20 minutes before it was allowed to berth at the Deep Water Quay yesterday.

The liner entered port at 9.03 a.m. and was completely berthed at 10 a.m. It was carrying 1,241 passengers and 554 crew members.

While the Deep Water Quay (DWQ) is owned by Valletta Gateway Terminals (VGT), Viset, the consortium that operates the cruise terminal, has a right to berths at this quay as long as they do not interrupt VGT's business and if all their berths are taken up.

But VGT yesterday stopped mooring men and Viset personnel from entering the DWQ to manage the passenger operation, sources said.

A spokesman for the Malta Maritime Authority said the use of berths is expressly regulated by law and a contract, adding that yesterday morning VGT was instructed to accommodate the ship at DWQ, since all berths at the Viset concession were taken up.

The spokesman said that according to a deed signed by the government and Viset, the latter could ask the authority to berth cruise liners at the DWQ subject to availability in case of an overspill in accommodating cruise liners along Pinto Wharf. Such a request had to be made to VGT not later than 48 hours prior to the visit by a cruise liner and, in this case, VGT had been notified well in advance.

He said the authority was meeting both organisations to discuss the matter and avoid it being repeated. "We will take all necessary action permissible by law to ensure this."

Mystery initially shrouded the incident with Viset general manager Chris Paris refusing to say what was happening, his only reply to questions being "no comment".

George Fenech, the head of the Tumas Group, which owns VGT, said when contacted later in the day he did not really know what happened but it was probably an issue of misunderstanding or mismanagement.

Norman Xerxen, from the ship agents JB Sorotto Ltd, would only say that the situation was resolved within 15 to 20 minutes and there had been no complaints whatsoever from tourists.

A similar problem had occurred in May last year when a cruise liner had not been allowed to berth for an hour. Then, the reason had been that the cruise liner's displacement was bigger than the quay's capacity. The issue had been resolved with fresh assessments of the quay's displacement capacity and the introduction of remedial measures.