Let’s start with the facts. The cruise industry is the safest form of passenger travel in the world. On a passenger by mile basis there are far less injuries and fatalities than planes, trains, or automobiles. The likelihood of being injured or worse during a cruise accident is astonishingly small. But when people hear about accidents on a cruise ship, especially because it is so rare, it certainly captures our imagination. And in a year that celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Titanic it seems our imagination is just waiting to be captured.
There is also a real fraternity among all those who sail the seas. When there is an accident or crisis of any kind which impacts any ocean going vessel it is as if it happened to us. The night of the Costa Concordia accident we were enjoying a crew wine and cheese night with great acoustic music in Mingles, our crew lounge. When the flat screen televisions started to show the news coverage of Concordia the mood of the entire room grew somber. Later when we discovered that one of our spa employee’s husbands worked on the wrecked ship it simply became personal. Our guests, of course, immediately wanted our take on the accident. We studiously avoided making any comment. We weren’t there and we knew no more than our guests could see on the news. We simply assured our guests of how safe our ships are and that we take a different line when we sail out of Civitavecchia.
The safety record of ships at sea is no fluke, but is the direct result of our obsession with safety. The expressed mantra of Celebrity Cruise Lines is that Safety is Everybody’s Business. Each Sunday I send out a topic for the week that must be reviewed and discussed by every department. With only twelve different topics that means that every crew member reviews this material four or five times per year. The first training that any crew member gets upon starting a contract is safety, and there are several course of this type in our first few days. Every cruise there is a passenger drill before departure. During the course of the cruise there is a full crew emergency and lifeboat drill. Officers have advanced training in Crowd and Crisis Management. Our goal is for this to become so second nature that in the event of a real emergency it would all be instinctive. In fact one of the telling results of the Costa Concordia accident was that so few people were lost. Think about how incredibly difficult it would be to evacuate 4000 people for a dramatically listing and sinking ship and that it was accomplished with minimal loss of life and injury. This was a tribute to the training and execution of the Concordia crew in responding to this disaster.
So imagine our shock when the news came across the internet only a month after the Concordia that another Costa ship had experienced a fire and complete loss of power and was now adrift in the Indian Ocean. It was with a sense of utter shock that we tried to process this news. These events just don’t happen. When they do they are widely spaced apart over time and do not consistently happen to the same company. To hear that another Costa ship was in trouble led to the knee-jerk denial of the story. No, that’s not possible . . . who did you hear that from . . . were the common skeptical replies. Of course, Costa had been stricken a second time and the Crew Mess was quiet during the next few meals as the images of another cruise ship in trouble filled the television screens. You can’t help but thinking that there but by the grace of God go I. (knock wood)
Once again, our public relations replies were memorized, our safety reviews increased, and the intensity of our drills picked up. I watched from my position in the staging area as our onboard fire team responded to a simulated fire in less than 6 minutes and had the fire contained and out in less than 20. It reminded me of how lucky I am that on Celebrity safety truly is everybody’s business. So, that in the very unlikely event of a real emergency (knock wood) we would come out victorious with all hands safe.
That preparation is why the cruise industry has the best travel safety record.
And the adventure continues . . .
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