Cruise line safety

Issues, Summary Critical Analysis of Cruise Safety Article

The issue addressed in the article concerned the safety of transport of ships with the article basing its arguments and evidences on the cruise lines’ ships transport safety. The article discussed the company’s transport system as being faced with transportation problems such as grounding of its ships and fire accidents. The article used evidences from the company’s frequents accidents that endangered passengers and affected the economy of both the company and the international business as they relied on the ships for transport of their goods. This issue on transport safety could be argued from the poor management point of view that was evidenced by the company hiring new military personnel to deal with transport issues for the company. The company experienced external interference from politicians and other regulators due to its increases accidents and inefficiency showed its deteriorated transport system. The issue on transport safety is important to every company or organization dealing with public transport as it gives clients the confidence to use the system.

Transport is very important to businesses as it forms the means in which business transits their goods, technology, and labor from one country to another. Therefore, transport and safety is relevant to international business in ensuring that their goods and other components of transportation are safely delivered to their destinations. Poor and risky transport threatens the operations of multinational corporations and the transport of people, which is among the key factors that contribute to economy development. Accident such as fire during transit of goods causes many losses to international business as they transport goods in bulk. In addition, international business operates in a time sensitive environment and so the delay of goods and services may result to loss thus the safety and efficiency of transport sectors becomes very important in international business. Hence, international business should consider the right transport choices when transiting their goods and services may be through research and studies of the company’s safety policies and their experience in handling transports disasters.

The article discuses the accidents that cruise Lines Company had experienced with its ships aboard. The article noted that, the company ship’s accident had left 2,750-passenger at sea for days in year 2013. The Carnival Triumph and Grandeur of the Seas ships were involved in accidents fire accidents that affected the reputation of the company and its financial services prompting politicians and regulators to question its safety (Bachman, 2014).

This led to the industry reorganization and hiring two additional staff to work on its overseas transport to prevent the accidents that had ruined its operations. The article also noted that not only did the cruise line ships had accidents but also they had problems on grounding and he addresses the problem encountered on Italy port where one of the company’s ship experienced grounding hitches citing problem with its crew. The cruise also came up with changes in its transport system trying to adapt some of the quality assurance protocols that are used by airlines to ensure freights safety and cockpits situations in order to provide the appropriate measure in cases of emergencies. This has led to the industry modifying its Royal Caribbean ship so that it can keep the passengers aboard and safe. The cruise line will be coming up with the technology to monitor large ships by tracking their bridge data and noting any arbonomalities that may warrant emergencies (Bachman, 2014). By this, the company believes it will be able to minimize most of the accidents involved by its large ships. The author concluded the article by questioning the ability to rescue a large number of passengers that are usually transported using cruise large ships.

I agree with the article on the issue of cruise safety. By the author writing on the issues about cruise line, he made the public aware of the dangers of sea transport such as grounding problems that could delay goods and services on transit, fire accidents that may damages goods on transit hence compromising their quality, and even death of the passengers. By the author writing on Cruise, it was an example of how sea transport companies are faced with challenges and how they have delayed actions to improve on the transport resulting in consecutive accidents that endanger people’s life. It was important for the author to write about these issues as sea transport forms the most widely used means of transport for international business in moving their goods and machinery from one country to another and across their satellite stores. Therefore, it is important to consider transport safety when preparing for transportation of such goods. In international business, quality goods and timely delivery of goods in the market enable firms to meet the needs of consumers thus being able to define their market. Therefore, it is important for international businesses to know the reliability and how competent a company is in transporting their goods without compromising on their quality and delaying then to reach the market.

According to Ball, Geringer, Mculloch, & Minor, (2012) for a company or a business to be able to compete for global market, it must offer quality services and be able to meet the full demand of the market on time. Delayed goods through delayed ship grounding and accidents affects the supply of goods and service in the market making consumers to look for alternative goods from similar companies hence causing competition of the affected business to increase. In international business, competition is the driver of businesses’ growth through providing quality goods (Ball et al, 2012). Hence, delay and damage of goods compromise quality resulting to business losses that affects its growth in the market and competition. International businesses must maintain a continued growth and command a bigger share of the market in order to remain competitive. However, most business operations are greatly affected by delayed transportation of their goods and services to their target market (Ball et al, 2012).

The author questioned the transport safety of Cruise line ships only on the basis of the accidents that had happened for its ships. For example he cited various evidences of the ship grounding near Italy and the fire accident of Carnival Triumph and Grandeur of Seas (Bachman, 2014). He only mentioned about staffing as the only major role that could help the company transport issues. He failed to fully analyze the causes of the accidents and losses that might have been incurred by the clients, how they affected the economy and the environmental impact of the accidents. Moreover, the author did not discuss port accessibility during grounding and whether the company had a regular maintenance or continuous servicing program for its ships before allowing them to the sea. He was skewed on the loss and the type of accidents.

The cruise safety issue could be discussed on the basis of the conditions of the ships and what they might be the cause of frequent accidents. The environmental impact during accidents is an important factor that the author should have considered as part of transport safety. This could be caused by accidents of ships transporting chemicals and oils may cause environment pollution. Poor weather conditions may affect the efficiency of the shipping by delayed grounding and ship taking longer time in the sea. Other mechanical problems and lack of maintenance of ships by the company may result in accidents such as fire that may delay shipping process. A shipping company should recruit risk management personnel that will help to assess the risks and potential causes of accidents or inefficiencies in the company thus coming up with strategies to prevent them. The company should consider using technology to monitor all its ships and crews maintaining constant contact with emergencies department in cases of problems when still on transit.

References

• Bachman, J. (2014, March 27). To Boost Safety, Cruise Lines Want to Be More Like Airlines. Business week.
• Ball, A., Geringer, M., Mculloch, J. & Minor, M. (2012). International business: the challenge of global competition. 13th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin.