Venice is proud of its heritage. Home to beautiful architecture, canals, bridges, gondolas, the annual Venice Film Festival, the Basilica and many other churches along with museums like the Guggenheim, its probably no surprise that cruise ships are not on the top of their list of things to add to the mix. In the wake of the Concordia grounding, considering the threat of accidents, air and water pollution, and an additional 2 million more visitors a year into a city already maxed out with tourists, Venice has a plan to keep cruise ships away.
The city does not want cruise ships in their lagoon at all but as a first step to keep them away, wants to reroute ships arriving in Venice so they stay farther from St. Mark’s and other prominent monuments as a possible step toward keeping them out of the lagoon altogether.
“This is one of the hypotheses we’re working on,” Environmental Minister Corrado Clini told the Associated Press. “In the meantime we should take precautionary measures to progressively reduce risk.”
The Venice Port Authority opposes moves against cruise traffic saying the cruise industry employs thousands of Venetians and believes Venice is not a candidate for cruise ships to run aground like the Concordia did last month, not all that far away.
In addition, a team of 25 cruise ship captains work around the clock as pilots of a sort, assigned to board cruise ships outside the lagoon and oversee their passage through Venice, accompanied by a pair of tug boats.
To deal with the air pollution, the port is exploring a system that would let ships plug in to shore side power when docked, similar to how ships plug in to U.S. West coast ports, allowing them to turn off their engines. Like U.S. systems, a green shore side power system will be costly and seems to have stalled for that reason.
Unlike U.S. ports concerned about the impact of cruise ships though, Venice is a United Nations-protected UNESCO site and Francesco Bandarin, UNESCO’s assistant director-general for culture, a Venetian himself, said longer-term solutions are needed.
“The city is a very fragile city. This is a city that comes to us from the Middle Ages,” Bandarin told the AP. “It is not designed for having that kind of traffic. It is designed to have ships, and we will always have ships around Venice, but not these kind of ships.”
“How did the ship sink? Could it have been prevented? Why weren’t the passengers warned earlier? What are the similarities to and differences from the Titanic?” asks and answers NatGeo in the special episode Sunday night.
Costa Concordia was carrying more than 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew, including Americans Sameer and Divya Sharma from Massachusetts and 18-year-old Amanda Warrick who was traveling with her older brothers. On Friday the 13th, while the Sharmas shrug off any bad luck, the Warrick siblings toss out the idea that “something’s gonna happen.”
Soon, the ship detoured off course and hit the rocks. Amanda describes the immediate impact, telling NatGeo, “At first there was a tilt and a shake of the ship, that’s when tables and glasses started crashing. I was kind of in shock, I remember immediately standing up and looking at my brothers. I was just kind of speechless and silent.”
Italian Cruise Ship Disaster: The Untold Stories includes in-depth stories from passengers and staff on board as well as Coast Guard rescuers with home video, some never before seen on U.S. television, and reconstruction of the sinking of the Costa Concordia as it happened.The hour-long program starts at 7PM ET/PT Sunday, February 12, rebroadcast February 13, at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
The cruise line that owns Costa Concordia is trying to move forward, past recovery and initial assistance efforts to make an offer to non-injured passengers. Still without conclusive forensic reasons or blame placed for the tragic grounding of January 13, Costa Cruises faces legal action as it and the entire cruise industry review safety standards.
The families of those who died, passengers that were injured and crew members will be handled on a case by case basis. For everyone else, the line is offering:
A lump sum of 11,000 euros (about $14,500) per person as indemnification, covering all patrimonial and nonpatrimonial damages, including loss of baggage and personal effects, psychological distress and loss of enjoyment of the cruise vacation;
Reimbursement of the value of the cruise, including harbor taxes;
Reimbursement of air and bus transfers included in the cruise package
Full reimbursement of travel expenses to reach the port of embarkation and return home;
Reimbursement of any medical expenses resulting from the cruise;
Reimbursement of expenses incurred on board during the cruise.
Almost simultaneously,crew member Gary Lobaton off Costa Concordia has filed a complaint in the federal court of Chicago seeking class-action status in a $multi-million lawsuit.
“The defendants failed to properly and timely notify all plaintiffs on board of the deadly and dangerous condition of the cruise ship as to avoid injury and death,” Lobaton said in the complaint. The passengers and crew “were abandoned by the captain.”
Meanwhile, Fox News reports six passengers off the stricken cruise ship filed a complaint against Carnival Corporation, parent company of ship owner Costa Cruises, in a Miami court demanding $460 million in compensation.
Maritime law experts say such actions probably won’t go far. Similar attempts to sue in the U.S. have been turned away by the U.S. Supreme Court and the expense of filing in a foreign court is often too great. Between the liability limitation clauses of the passenger contract cruise travelers agree to by booking passage on a cruise ship and the nearly-exempt status of foreign flagged cruise ships, cruise lines have themselves covered.
“It’s well-settled law,” said Jerry Hamilton, a maritime attorney who regularly defends cruise lines against lawsuits in STLToday. “The Supreme Court has said those clauses are valid clauses. They will be upheld.”
Still, the cruise industry moves on and the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), a trade group that represents the interests of 26 member lines, announced a global safety review in answer to questions raised by the Costa Concordia grounding.
Key components of the Review include:
An internal review by CLIA members of their own operational safety practices and procedures concerning issues of navigation, evacuation, emergency training, and related practices and procedures.
Consultation with independent external experts.
Identification and sharing of industry best practices and policies, as well as possible recommendations to the IMO for substantive regulatory changes to further improve the industry’s operational safety.
Collaboration with the IMO, governments and regulatory bodies to implement any necessary regulatory changes.
“While the cruise industry has an outstanding safety record, CLIA is fully committed to understanding the factors that contributed to the Concordia incident and is proactively responding to all maritime safety issues,” the organization said in a statement, adding “The Cruise Industry Operational Safety Review will enable the industry to do so in a meaningful and expedited manner.”
How this story ends, how much compensation will be given or awarded, will have a lot to do with conclusive results of investigations underway involving the captain of the ship and black box evidence of what really happened.
For now, concerned parties wait while preliminary operations to pump fuel out of the cruise ship were suspended Saturday due to bad weather. Workers decided the sea was too rough to continue the salvage operation.
Changes are coming for cruise travelers even though exactly what happened to force Costa Concordia to ground off the coast of Italy has yet to be defined by forensic evidence. Playing out as everything from rumors to accusations and first-hand reports from passengers actually on the ship, media outlets have been working overtime reporting the story. Some accounts seem reasonable, some far-fetched and some totally bizarre. But churning to the top and coming more in focus all the time are changes likely to be seen in the very near future that will affect every cruise traveler.
Thinking of what we know and have seen about the Costa Concordia event, there are some facts that we don’t need an official report to verify. We see a once-mighty cruise ship on its side with our own eyes and ask “How could this have happened?” That’s the big question that concerns cruise industry experts and will force changes in the operation of cruise ships in the very near future.
“This tragedy has called into question our company’s safety and emergency response procedures and practices,” Micky Arison, chairman and CEO of Carnival Corporation said last week, calling for an audit of safety procedures.
Technically, by the numbers, cruise vacations are safe. According to the Cruise Lines International Association, more than 16 million passengers sailed in 2011 and 2012 is projected to exceed that by at least another million. This type of accident is rare. But so was the sinking of the RMS Titanic, 100 years ago in April. That disastrous event served as a wake up call to an overly confident cruise industry at the time much like Concordia has shaken even the hyper-safe cruise industry of today.
“While I have every confidence in the safety of our vessels and the professionalism of our crews, this review will evaluate all practices and procedures to make sure that this kind of accident doesn’t happen again,” said Arison.
To insure future safety at a higher, more effective level, Arison ordered a complete review of safety procedures fleet-wide across all the various cruise line brands that fall under the Carnival Corporation umbrella.
On the safety topic, everyone in the cruise industry seems to agree.
“Any loss of life at sea is tragic, but the Costa Concordia disaster is even more traumatic since it was entirely preventable,” said Captain Bill Doherty, director of maritime affairs for Nexus, a provider of private maritime safety and security solutions.
“Safety is a journey rather than a destination,” said Royal Caribbean President and CEOAdam Goldstein echoing the position of many in the cruise industry. Goldstein notes the need to look for lessons in every minor incident or accident. Looking to the future, Goldstein cautions against complacency. “This is a never ending cycle. As our Chairman Richard Fain says, there is no such thing as perfect safety but there is such a thing as perfect dedication to safety. We strive to be true to that concept.”
A complete review of safety procedures will naturally come in contact with security issues that can create potential safety problems. Right after 9-11, the travel industry was on it’s highest level of security ever. Airlines, cruise lines, hotels, and airports in addition to governmental agencies put into place new protocols to help prevent a disaster such as the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center from happening ever again.
In the process, the cruise industry inquiry will probably run into other areas of safety and security that will force cascading change on areas other than lifeboats, safety drills and the like.
Changes to look for:
Safety Drill before the ship leaves the dock on every sailing- This is just a no-brainer after the Costa Concordia event where hundreds who had embarked the vessel the day of the grounding had received little if any safety instruction.
The modification or end of Navigational Bridge and behind the scenes tours– They went away right after 9-11 but have crept back in from one cruise line to another as a revenue source that offers an opportunity to cause harm that could affect a ship full of passengers.
Increased security presence on ships– Although rare, instances of binge drinking and other associated “I’m at sea so its OK” behavior will come under greater control with an increased security presence on ships industry-wide.
Tighter rules on teens– Teen rape, underage drinking and other associated problems with teen travelers are caused by an environment that inadvertently allows these things to happen. While cruise lines have a zero-tolerance for crime and drugs on ships, the very nature of a cruise ship environment allows them to happen. This will be a tough one to address but one that is overdue for action.
Passports required– The issue has been kept on hold for years as the travel industry moans that requiring passports for US citizens would prevent many from traveling. One step toward better security and resulting safety would be the increased level of security brought by requiring passports of all passengers embarking any ship, any time.
Background checks– Critics of the cruise industry point to a lack of diligence that allows sex and drug offenders and child molesters, required to register on land, to easily board cruise ships. Their presence creates an environment of easy prey as underage passengers are allowed to roam free. Once seen as the call of overly-critical cruise foes, the industry will give the topic serious consideration.
Psychological profiles of command officers– Especially if evidence confirms that the captain of Costa Concordia was on a joy ride to show off the ship to the folks on shore, this will be huge. “Captains ultimately answer to no one — on board,” Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor-in-chief of Cruise Critic told MSNBC. The reasons are steeped in seafaring history, she said. “But I think that’s something that will change.” More checks and balances are needed, and Brown anticipate changes in the future as a result of the Concordia grounding. “A lot of standardization is probably coming out of this,” she said.
Experts agree, this can’t happen again, but questions are raised.
Done right, this increased focus on safety and security plus all the areas of cruise ship operations that are affected by both will be costly. Expect cruise prices to rise as a result. Still, wouldn’t it be better to pay $50 more for a cruise and greatly reduce the odds of these things happening ever again?
It was not all that long ago that safety concerns over trouble spots like Egypt, Mexico, Japan and others around the globe were driving travelers toward cruise vacations. Does this Costa Concordia tragedy change that attraction?
These are questions that will be answered over time as the cruise industry, still reeling from this latest event, recovers, regroups and moves on.
Over the past week, the Costa Concordia story has been a prominent one amongst both the mainstream media and travel outlets alike. The sinking of a cruise ship is not a common occurrence and ranks amongst the worst travel nightmares imaginable. While questions about exactly what happened aboard that ship remain, it is clear that the accident will likely have far reaching consequences and bring change to the cruise industry.
With that in mind, our friends over at National Geographic have put together an interesting article, along with some very compelling images, of 5 cruise ship disasters that changed travel. Each of the entries on the list, and the Costa Concordia is not among them, left an indelible mark on how cruise ships operate today. For example, not surprisingly, the Titanic earns a place on Nat Geo’s roll call of infamy thanks to the fact that when it went down, there were only enough lifeboats for about half the passengers on board. As a result, 1500 people perished, and cruise ships were later mandated to begin carring enough lifeboats for everyone.
The four other entries on the list had a similar impact on the industry, although not all of them resulted in such a massive loss of life. It is an interesting study of how a disaster at sea can make a lasting change for the better, and end up making travel by ship a lot safer in the process.