Travel News

How Carnival Cruise Lines Is Starting to Change

It’s been rough sailing for Carnival Corporation, the world’s largest cruise line, with 102 ships and 10 brands.

First it was the Costa Concordia tragedy. Then, earlier this year, the fire broke out in the engine on the Carnival Triumph in the Gulf of Mexico. Consumer confidence in cruising dropped, then Carnival’s stock took a hit and bookings flattened.

Carnival Cruise Corporations’ new CEO Arnold Donald has only been on the job for nine weeks, but that’s long enough to make some significant changes. When it comes to incidents like the Carnival Triumph, Donald takes a proactive approach. His aim to make sure similar incidents don’t happen again. The company is now spending $600 million to upgrade its fleet. Those upgrades include a second back-up generator nowhere near the engine room, so that ships won’t lose power if there is an engine fire.

In addition, former Coast Guard Commander and Carnival’s new Vice President of Technical Operations, Mark Jackson is in charge of the safety overhaul. He took Peter below decks to the engine room to see what Carnival is doing to fix recent problems. Improvements include rerouting 63 miles of cable so that a fire would no longer be likely to take out both engine rooms on a ship. In terms of fire suppression, he has increased the number of water mist nozzles from 30 to 500. There is also a 24/7 manned patrol to look for oil and fuel leaks.

Watch Peter’s exclusive CBS This Morning interview with Carnival Cruise Lines’ new CEO Arnold Donald to hear about what went wrong and what he is doing to turn his ships around.

For more information about cruise travel, check out: