Cruise line P&O has cancelled seven sailings on Arcadia, just two weeks after the ship returned to service.

The operator said it is reassigning crew members to other ships because COVID-19 cases are impacting crew availability.

Arcadia resumed services on 27 March, with a 16-day round-trip from Southampton to the Canary Islands.

The current voyage is not affected, but future sailings, from 12 April up to and including the 23 June departure have been axed.

Some agents said clients are now out of pocket because they’d booked flights to Southampton for cruises that have been cancelled. Agents on the Travel Gossip Facebook group also said some clients had been informed of the cancellations before they had.

P&O said: “The current and extraordinary impact of COVID-19 in the UK, in the wider hospitality, service and airline industry as a whole has resulted in a temporary disruption to crewmembers available to join our ships.

“As a result, P&O Cruises will be re-deploying crew from Arcadia to other ships in the fleet. This is being done in order to maintain the company’s high standards of service of which we are very proud, across the other five ships in the fleet.

“We are so sorry but as a result of this re-deployment, the following seven cruises will be cancelled: J205, J206, J207, J208, J209, J210, J211.

“Guests who are booked on these cruises will receive a full refund of all monies paid and a future cruise credit and on board spending money to use on a new P&O Cruises holiday to be booked before December 31, 2023.”

A P&O Cruises spokesperson told Travel Gossip: “Travel Agent cancellation commission will be protected, based on the cancellation fee that would have applied.

“We communicated the cancellations to agents through the P&O Cruises Shine Rewards Club in line with guest communications.

“We would encourage all agents to register with our Shine Rewards Club in order to receive future communication from P&O Cruises.”

Find out more about the Shine Rewards Club here.