- A Carnival cruise ship was adrift 150 miles off the coast of Mexico after an engine room fire. Cruise passengers were complaining about the lack of air conditioning, hot cabins, cold food and toilets that wouldn't flush.
As I watched the news
broadcast, I thought it was a documentary about the Carnival Splendor,
which suffered a disabling engine room fire in November 2010 off Mexico.
But the story was about the Carnival Triumph, which caught fire early
Sunday after sailing from Galveston, Texas, with more than 3,100
passengers.
The cruise industry says
cruise ship fires are rare, but they are not rare. They happen with
alarming frequency. In the two years between the Splendor and the
Triumph fires, more than 10 cruise ship fires were reported in the
media. Several cruise ships were completely disabled, including the
Costa Allegra, the Bahamas Celebration and the Ocean Star.
The Azamara Quest was
partially disabled and had to crawl back to port in Indonesia. The
Allegra and Quest broke down in waters where pirates frequent, to add to
the drama.
A fire aboard the Queen Mary II was later determined to have been caused by a "catastrophic explosion."
Other cruise ships
experienced what the industry would either deny or call "minor fires,"
including the Adventure of the Seas, the Crown Princess, the MSC Musica
and the Allure. But there is nothing minor about a cruise ship, filled
with thousands of passengers, catching on fire on the high seas, even
for a matter of seconds.
James Walker
I have attended seven
congressional hearings since 2005 regarding issues of cruise ship
passenger safety. At the last hearing, before Sen. Jay Rockefeller,
cruise expert and author Ross Klein said fires broke out in 79 cruise
ships from 1990 to 2011. Most of these fires received little coverage in
the U.S. press. It is a topic that the travel publications avoid and
travel agents do not like to hear.
Concordia disaster focuses attention on how cruise industry operates
The cruise industry does a
remarkable job advertising that cruising is a safe and affordable
family vacation. It certainly is affordable, in large part because major
cruise lines such as Carnival and Royal Caribbean are incorporated in
foreign countries like Panama, the Bahamas, Bermuda and Liberia. Their
ships fly the flags of foreign nations and thus avoid all U.S. federal
taxes, labor laws and safety regulations.
In 2011, three-quarters
of the nearly 16 million cruise bookings worldwide were made from the
United States, according to the industry group Cruise Lines
International Association, which represents 26 cruise lines, including
the world's largest, Carnival and Royal Caribbean.
Carnival ship moving slowly through Gulf
Cruise passenger use bags as toilets
You can't find a cheaper
vacation than spending a week on one of these "fun ships." But the
vacation comes with a hidden price. The cruise lines are working their
crew members excessively long hours and paying them extremely low wages.
The Cruise Lines International Association
says its "crew members are provided wages that are competitive with
international pay scales." But a cleaner aboard a Royal Caribbean ship,
for example, will work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little
as $156.25 a week with no tips. U.S. labor laws are not applicable to
provide protection to crew members at sea, nor is there any real
oversight of the cruise lines' operations.
The cruise industry
insists that it is regulated and that the safety and security of its
passengers and crew is its highest priority. Ships are subject to
inspections by the countries they call on. In the United States, ships
must pass initial and annual U.S. Coast Guard Marine inspections.
But the Coast Guard is
underfunded and understaffed and can't possibly conduct adequate
inspections of the hundreds of cruise ships that call regularly on U.S.
ports across the nation. And the ships are getting bigger and carrying
more passengers ever year. For example, Disney Fantasy -- whose safety is not in doubt -- is 14 decks high and more than three football fields long and can carry about 5,500 people.
Cruise ships
theoretically follow guidelines set forth by the International Maritime
Organization and the recommendations in the Safety of Life at Sea. But
the International Maritime Organization,
a United Nations organization, does not have the authority to enforce
its own guidelines, nor can it impose fines or criminal sanctions
against cruise lines that flout Safety of Life at Sea recommendations.
This obligation falls to flag states, like Panama.
The result is that
cruise lines are largely unregulated. They offer low-price cruise fares
to get the passengers aboard and then make their profits from alcohol
sales; casino, spa and photography activities; and shore excursions.
The cruise lines operate
their ships virtually 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a
year. Cruise ships do not make money unless they are operating. The
cruise lines push the ships just as hard as they push their crew
members. A ship out of service for a week for routine maintenance means
the loss of tens of millions of dollars and thousands of dissatisfied
customers.
It is in this environment that the 13-year-old Carnival Triumph was trying to sail back to Galveston.
Cruise ships, like their
foreign-based crew members, are treated as fungible goods. When crew
members get debilitating injuries because of overwork and exhaustion,
they are left in their home countries. The Triumph, sailing since 1999,
will eventually end up being sold to the European market, renamed and
abandoned as well.
The push to always keep
the show on the road without long delays causes the same problems in
investigations of passenger disappearances, shipboard crimes and
gastrointestinal illnesses. These investigations are often rushed so the
cruise is held up for as little time as possible.
When there is a
norovirus outbreak on a ship, cruise lines are faced with the prospect
of disembarking hundreds of ill passengers, sanitizing the ship and then
reloading several thousands of passengers on board. It is an impossible
prospect to locate and kill the virus on the massive ships given the
short turnaround on an embarkation day. But the business model of the
cruise industry is: Strike up the band and hand out the daiquiris, the
cruise must go on.
It is also impossible
for governmental entities such as the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention to conduct a thorough, painstaking epidemiology study to
ascertain the type of virus and its origin. Cruise lines quickly blame
the passengers for not washing their hands, but the CDC and the Food and
Drug Administration concluded long ago that the most likely and common
source of norovirus is contaminated food or water.
Crew members say that
infected workers often do not complain of their illness out of fear of
not being paid or of losing their jobs. Cruise lines tell the passengers
to use hand sanitizers, but the culprit may be norovirus-laden salad.
Unlike the U.S.
commercial aviation industry, with strict Federal Aviation
Administration oversight that can ground a fleet of aircraft, the cruise
industry is largely accountable to countries like Panama or the Bahamas
-- which may or may not want to offend their cruise line friends in
Miami.
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