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Costa puts hopes on new flagship after cruise disaster
May 7, 2012

VENICE (Reuters) - Cruise operator Costa Crociere took delivery of a new flagship liner on Saturday, hoping the glamour of Italy's biggest ship will mark a new era for a company whose reputation was marred by the deadly Concordia disaster.

The 114,500-tonne Costa Fascinosa, built by state-owned shipyard Fincantieri, has space for 3,500 passengers. An even bigger vessel, with 5,000 berths, should be ready in 2014 for a company that says bookings have recovered from the crisis.

"We can't ignore the January accident. It hit us hard. We are working on safety issues," Costa CEO and Chairman Pier Luigi Foschi told reporters in a spacious bar onboard the Fascinosa with a view over Venice's lagoon.

In January, the Costa Concordia hit a reef near the island of Giglio off the Tuscan coast, capsizing and killing at least 30 people in an accident investigators say was caused when its captain Francesco Schettino took the ship too close to shore.

The accident rocked the cruise liner industry, hitting bookings and raising concerns about the safety of the huge modern cruise ships that ply the seas with thousands of passengers aboard.

For Costa Crociere, which last year carried 2.3 million passengers, it could hardly have come at a worse time, with the global economic crisis already making potential cruise customers nervous about their jobs and finances.

The company actually stopped marketing for a period but now says customers are flowing back.

"Despite the economic downturn and the impact on consumption Costa has bounced back and booking volumes are back to the same levels recorded this time last year," Foschi said.

Costa has promised to introduce a real-time route-monitoring system, which will be later adopted by parent group Carnival Corporation & Plc, and a system to increase sharing of the ship's navigation plan between the captain and the officers.

"We do not want to radically change the responsibilities of the captain but simply allow other officers to give opinions," Foschi said.

Some of the Concordia officers have said they raised the alarm day but that Schettino dismissed the scale of the danger.

Source :- http://news.yahoo.com/