The New York City-bound Concorde charter flight had been carrying passengers for a sixteen-day cruise to Manta, Ecuador on board MS Deutschland.

Despite the accident, the cruise continued as planned and was later sailed to Sydney, Australia for the 2000 Summer Olympics for use as an entertainment ship.

[6] On 19 May 2015 the MS Deutschland was sold over to the Absolute Nevada company based in the United States, which purchased the ship for approximately $21 million.

[clarification needed] Initially the ship was planned to serve as a floating university for the American organization Semester at Sea and in the process was reflagged to Nassau in the Bahamas.

It was on this occasion that MS Deutschland began sailing under the Bahamas flag, and its funnel was painted into Plantours yellow branding.

[8] From 20 June 2015 to 10 August 2015 the ship carried cruise tours to the North Sea, Norwegian Fjords, Svalbard, Greenland, the Faroes and Shetland Islands and to Hamburg city before ending in Kiel.