Long story, but here is the essence: the Red Sea Aggressor caught fire and sank on Nov 1, 2019. I had chartered the full boat (through a travel agency) for a trip in Sept 2020. On Nov 5 and 6, 2019, I read these two postings: Der Untergang der Red Sea Aggressor 1 - Forenbeitrag auf Taucher.Net (use Google Translate), and Fire on safari boat Suzana in Egypt (Red Sea Aggressor). I requested to cancel my booking and refund my deposit. Aggressor's response to the travel agent asked why was I so upset? They were going to provide me with some kind of boat for the scheduled trip.
My response to the travel agent was:
Why am I upset? The fact that they are even asking is part of the problem; they are either clueless or have no conscience. One of their major boats burned and sank, happily only one death, their response is irresponsible: no public statement of fact nor regret nor apology, apparently very poor treatment if the survivors, attempt to discredit the one who died as having gone back for his laptop which the surviving roommate says is a lie, and apparent total disregard for public opinion so long as they can maintain their bottom line. This is a company I do not want to do business with.
More specifically re my charter: when my customers find out about this some will bail, and others will want to know what are Aggressor's plans to supply a boat for our charter. The Aggressor's response is "trust us." No, I cannot do that. In a few days the air schedules and prices for our time period will be posted, and my early adopters will begin buying tickets. Even if Aggressor comes up with a boat for our same dates and itinerary, we do not know how many passengers they will be able to carry. And even if all that works out, there is no information and thus no assurance that their safety procedures and emergency response will be any better. They have to admit a problem, show they are cognizant of the safety issues, address them, and provide some confidence to their customers. Instead, their historical response, and what they appear to be doing now, is to stonewall, obfuscate, lie, and hope it will all go away. No thanks. I can't support their attitude, and don't want to subject my customers (who are friends) to this. The level of uncertainty is too high and the vendor is too irresponsible. Bad combo. I want out.
On Nov 13, 2019, Aggressor agreed to the trip cancellation and total refund of my deposit.
There are plenty of liveaboards around the world; no reason to use Aggressor. I'd been on them in Hawaii, Cayman, Palau, etc; nothing special.
