A View From Middle England - Conservative with a slight libertarian touch - For Christian charity and traditional belief - Free Enterprise NOT Covert Corporatism

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Costa Concordia counts the cost of corporate greed

12:54 pm  Arden Forester  3 comments

Costa Concordia lies stricken against submerged rocks
Much is being said about the miraculous survival of the passengers from the cruise ship Costa Concordia. Very commendable work by the Italian Coastguard and the people of Giglio Island when the ship hit the rocks around the island. 29 people are still missing. This has been something of a statement about human nature, to say the least. Many passengers did not panic, but bravely helped others. Some of the crew selfishly looked to save themselves first. That is how it is. What I find disturbing however is the attitude of the company. They were quick off the mark to blame the captain, just as airlines are quick to blame pilots. Corporate antennae always buzz and twitch with a "blame others first" attitude. Probably the lawyers are advising that this is best course of action.

Costa Concordia's owners, Costa Cruises, are obviously keen to minimise damage to their lucrative business. Around 2 million Britons want to go cruising, so with all the others in the world also desiring cruise holidays, this is big business. Costa's Chief Executive Officer Pier Luigi Foschi said at a press conference that captain Francesco Schettino changed a pre-programmed route to make a manoeuvre that was "unauthorised, unapproved and unknown to Costa".

"The captain has the authority to take the decisions on board. In this case, the captain decided to change the route and he went into waters that he did not know in advance," Mr Foschi said. So he's first in with the "blame the captain" routine. Yet the smartly-dressed Mr Foschi failed to say that his corporate website was still taking bookings for the sunken ship and its future cruises. Shame on you, Mr Foschi. You can't even get that right. Greed is the order of the day. Simon Calder, the travel editor of the Independent, went online and bought a ticket for a cruise on the Costa Concordia. This was revealed last night on Channel 5 news. Should a company be shamed into putting lives first before making sales?

It has been said that this ship sailed past the island before in this manner. Apparently it was so that the lights of the ship could be seen by the islanders. Some sort of spectacle it would appear. Corporate bosses are in the spotlight now, only because they seem to put the survival of their company before all else when tragedy, disaster or negative revenue streams befall them. I really do hope that the boss of Costa Cruises is not hiding something. Truth will out and people now want facts not spin and subterfuge.

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3 comments:

I am acquainted with a woman who was a pilot for one of our local airlines that is, in effect, a subsidiary of one of our majors. A few years back this airline had a plane crash in the Buffalo area, killing all on board and at least one person on the ground. Why did this happen? The schedules for the crew were so extreme that they were too exhausted to properly fly an airplane. My acquaintance quit her job and went to work for the Federal Aviation Authority to address this kind of worker abuse.

It is amazing what some companies demand here in the U.S. and, I gather, elsewhere. People need rest. They need time with friends and family. Too many work places now consider such things optional for their employees.

Very true, Chuck. Work place fatigue and exhaustion are all too common. I have someone experiencing just that close to me. But in the Costa Concordia tragedy I think that there is more to the "orders" given than meets the eye. I hope we get truthful answers.

Why did the sonar did not detect immediate land under belly. I doubt the Captain was getting BJ from someone in his cabin or doing someone, very normal for captains on such ships to flirt with women on board take them to cabin.

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