Costa Concordia a Black Eye for Cruise Ship Industry

When the Costa Concordia sank last week off the Italian coast, it was a terrible ordeal, not only for the 4,000 passengers and crew on board, but it also is a black eye for the cruise ship industry worldwide.

While all involved are lucky that the bad situation wasn’t worse, there are still some questions to ask as the investigation moves forward and other cruise lines around the world take a look at the safety procedures they currently have in place.

While this disaster looks to have occurred by captain’s error, according to maritime lawyer Richard Alsina, they will know what was happening on the bridge once the black box from the ship is examined.
What kind of training did the captain of the Concordia have? All ship officers are required to have extra training, not only on operating the ship, but training to inform other officers and crew how to get passengers safely off a ship in distress.

The International Maritime Organization sets minimum safety codes cruise ships must meet, but ships registered to different countries come under different jurisdictions.

Another question to consider is are these cruise ships getting too big to navigate and does that bring more risk to the passengers? Author and travel expert Rudy Maxa isn’t concerned about problems steering the ship, he’s more concerned with the number of people on the ship, and how you get that many off in a short period of time. “Well, there’s no question that it takes more effort to get a lot of people off, as opposed to a few people off,” stated Maxa.

The cruise ship industry as a whole may also take a beating. The capsizing is not only going to cost Costa and its parent company Carnival, it could set the tone for the rest of the year when it comes to cruise bookings. Nineteen million people took cruises last year and experts say that number should remain about the same, but cruise lines will have to reduce prices to attract some travelers.

“The publicity (from the Costa) is just going to kill them,” said Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York. “They’ll stay quiet for a week or two. Then Carnival will have a blitz of sales. So for the consumer, it’s going to be a great time to buy a cruise.”

That’s good news for customers who will be booking cruises in the coming months, but bad news for an industry that needs passengers to fill hundreds of mega-ships.


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