Lord Sterling, the boss of luxury cruise company, Swan Hellenic has come under fire after making demands that his passengers are kept apart from truck drivers at the port in Portsmouth, England. He claimed that the truck drivers smelled of body odour and the setting was not appropriate for his five star, luxury vision.
Lord Sterling reportedly said that he was concerned that customers travelling with Swan Hellenic will expect luxury and instead, will be asked to mix with Truck drivers who smell of body odour in the Summer, wear shorts with no shirt, and sometimes, won’t have shaved for several days.
As you can imagine, the comments made by Lord Sterling have not gone down well with both workers at the port, and the general public who are quite outraged at the snobbery and arrogance he has shown.
Frank Dixie, the manager of a local haulage firm said “Lord Sterling is incredibly arrogant. It is not very clever of him to come out with a comment like that in a prestigious port like Portsmouth.” Dixie claims that Lord Sterling is trying to introduce a class structure into the port, where different classes are not allowed to mix. This is a view which is shared with the vast majority of the general public.
The port manager has immediately come out to play down any suggestions of segregation within the port and the terminal, and feels that it is actually very unlikely that passengers going on cruises will come into contact with the truck drivers anyway because of the layout of the port.
