Two global cruise associations have welcomed a decision by the United Nation’s agency specialising in shipping safety, the International Maritime Organization, to bring in mandatory passenger musters prior to a ship’s departure from port.
The safety measure was announced by the global cruise industry with immediate effect on February 9, 2012, as part of the Global Cruise Industry Operational Safety Review that was launched in January following the Costa Concordia disaster.
The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and the European Cruise Council (ECC) have said they are pleased with IMO’s decision to include the recommendation in its International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (Solas).
The IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) has also incorporated three other policies from the review during its meetings in London last week.
The three policies involve loading lifeboats by crewmembers for training purposes, recording passenger nationality, and musters and emergency instructions. They are now included in IMO guidance specific to Passenger Ship Safety and have been implemented via industry-wide policies.
ECC chairman Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio said: “We welcome the decision by the IMO to incorporate key recommendations from the Global Cruise Industry Operational Safety Review into the Solas.
“The IMO’s decision to incorporate our recommendations into Solas, including our February 2012 decision to introduce on a voluntary basis the mandatory muster of passengers prior to departure from port, is an endorsement of the cruise industry’s approach to continuous safety improvement.
“It demonstrates how we as an industry are proactively achieving concrete, practical and significant safety dividends in the shortest possible time. We look forward to continuing to work with the IMO to secure further safety improvements in the future wherever there is scope to do so.”
Meanwhile, the CLIA and the ECC said that the cruise industry has adopted three additional safety policies addressing lifejacket stowage on newly-constructed ships, securing heavy objects onboard vessels and synchronising operating procedures on the bridge.
One of the policies aims to give passengers greater access to lifejackets in the event of an emergency, while another states that cruise line members of the CLIA and the ECC must carry out ship-wide inspections to ensure heavy objects like pianos and TVs are properly secured.
The third policy involves cruise lines having consistency in terms of operating procedures within individual companies and among brands within a commonly-owned and operated fleet, to improve communications for bridge staff.
The policies have emerged from the Cruise Industry Operational Safety Review launched in January, and as part of the review, February saw the global cruise industry bring in mandatory emergency drills for embarking passengers prior to departure from port.
Christine Duffy, president and chief executive of the CLIA, said: “These three new policies build upon the other seven wide-ranging policies that the global cruise industry has proactively adopted since January of this year and are helping improve the safety of passengers and crew, which is our industry’s top priority.”