Let's Think About Suspending the Jones Act.

[iancal]

I suspect that the only people thinking about this are the people on this forum.

[Charles4515]

Never said the 14 day cruise should be less, I said it is.  So, with increased fuel cost and less crew cost, they can offer 14 days worth of food and service for less than POA can offer for 7 days.    

First you say the supply was limited, so I guess you feel the price was high due to lack of supply?  Then you say the demand was low, so that should have reduced price.  Which way was it?  And the demand was so high that not only were the ships sailing near capacity every week, but the other cruise lines had increased their capacity to Hawaii from the West Coast by 500% during the time that NCL had 3 ships in Hawaii.

 

 

Other cruise lines were not competing with NCL. If other cruise lines could have competed with NCL the price would have probably dropped. But I didn’t think the NCL price was too high. The other lines have to have lower prices to fill those 14 day cruises.

 

Regardless the current model of stuffing ever more passengers on super mega ships was a model for huge profits to a few without regard to passenger or crew safety which helped transmit the virus. Almost every ship I have been on went to dry dock and came back with more cabins and less public space. Larger and larger profits and bonuses for doing that. No regard for safety, keep sailing during the epidemic and lie to the ports. The lines were getting greedier every year. Going forward there needs to be a big change, maybe some of those who were running the lines should go to jail instead of $16 and $18 million dollar bonuses. What happens going forward might cost passengers more or might not, cruises are a luxury, not a necessity. The cruise lines should not continue as before. The PSVA it should be rewritten, not to help the current cruise line operators and not at the expense of US labor. Consumer protection and labor protection should be in the act. That is the kind of protectionism I favor.

 

 

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[chengkp75]

Actually, the other cruise lines were competing with NCL, as they were offering 7 days in the islands for less money than NCL.  The price continued to drop on NCL until they couldn't take it anymore.  And, yes, the other cruise lines may have to lower a price to attract passengers on the longer cruises, but the real point is that they can offer a longer cruise for less money, and still make money, while NCL continues to poke along just making ends meet.  And, while you may not have felt the price was too high, that's about all we heard onboard was complaints about how high the fare was, compared to other lines.

 

I find the "greedier and greedier" argument interesting.  The cruise lines' return on investment is about mid-range for most large corporations.

 

And, I can tell you that if you take out the US built provision of the PVSA, which is essentially what I gather you are saying, since you want a US flag operation, then cruises will double in price, regardless of demand, as costs increase to support your US labor and US consumer safety.

 

It costs NCL about $8000 just to get a new crew member to the ship before his/her first day of work.  And then, with the ship being a US flag ship, and a US citizen, in a US port, there is nothing to hold that crew member from quitting.  The record was 45 minutes from the time they walked up the gangway to the time they quit, after all the training and certification NCL went through to get them there, and the cost of the flight.  In the first two years, when there was only the Aloha in Hawaii, with a 900+ crew, we went through over 3000 crew members.

 

As I've said, as much as I love my Quixotic quest for US flag cruise operations, I am enough of a realist to know that it can never happen, as the price of cruising would drive virtually everyone away.

[Charles4515]

There are I think three threads on this subject so I want to be clear in this thread while I think changes should be made in PSVA and Jones there would be consequences that have to be thought out. Can’t simply say suspend or repeal either act. And suspension of PSVA or Jones right now would not accomplish anything. It’s an unprecedented situation and we must be careful not to cause more harm than good.


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[Charles4515]

 
As I've said, as much as I love my Quixotic quest for US flag cruise operations, I am enough of a realist to know that it can never happen, as the price of cruising would drive virtually everyone away.

Coming out of this crisis could be the best opportunity for US flag operations. There are no operations now and everyone has been driven away except for some diehards. You would expect diehards on a cruise site like this. None of my family or friends would consider a cruise. Mention a cruise to my neighbors and they would laugh at the idea. The fares may go way up as a result of the crisis so the new future may be that cruises are something the family only does every five years. It may not come back the way it was before. There is no reason though to rush through any changes.


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[chengkp75]

55 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

 

Coming out of this crisis could be the best opportunity for US flag operations. There are no operations now and everyone has been driven away except for some diehards. You would expect diehards on a cruise site like this. None of my family or friends would consider a cruise. Mention a cruise to my neighbors and they would laugh at the idea. The fares may go way up as a result of the crisis so the new future may be that cruises are something the family only does every five years. It may not come back the way it was before. There is no reason though to rush through any changes.


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A few things that show how cruise prices will change if it were to go to US crews and US flag:

 

https://www.maritime.dot.gov/sites/marad.dot.gov/files/docs/resources/3651/comparisonofusandforeignflagoperatingcosts.pdf

 

This shows that operating cost for a cargo ship (much lower operating cost and lower crew cost than a cruise ship) is 2.7 times what a foreign flag ship would cost, and crew cost would be 5.3 times as much.  This was 9 years ago.

 

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/u-s-flag-fleet-faces-higher-costs-fewer-cargoes

 

And this shows that in the interim, the cost differential has gone up by about 40%.

 

For cruising to resume at even a fraction of what it was before this hiatus, it could not sustain a 270-380% increase in price.  And, crew cost would be a far more significant cost percentage of operating expense on a cruise ship, so the final figure could be 4 to 5 times today's prices.

Edited May 3, 2020 by chengkp75

[jan-n-john]

31 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

A few things that show how cruise prices will change if it were to go to US crews and US flag:

 

https://www.maritime.dot.gov/sites/marad.dot.gov/files/docs/resources/3651/comparisonofusandforeignflagoperatingcosts.pdf

 

This shows that operating cost for a cargo ship (much lower operating cost and lower crew cost than a cruise ship) is 2.7 times what a foreign flag ship would cost, and crew cost would be 5.3 times as much.  This was 9 years ago.

 

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/u-s-flag-fleet-faces-higher-costs-fewer-cargoes

 

And this shows that in the interim, the cost differential has gone up by about 40%.

 

For cruising to resume at even a fraction of what it was before this hiatus, it could not sustain a 270-380% increase in price.  And, crew cost would be a far more significant cost percentage of operating expense on a cruise ship, so the final figure could be 4 to 5 times today's prices.

 

Thanks for posting this, and especially the link to the MarAd study.  It once again clarifies why there aren't going to be any US flag cruise ships, at least not under current laws/policy; they simply cannot compete with foreign flag ships, a point I have been trying to make lately in other threads.  US maritime policy shoots itself in the foot.  BTW the 2011 study is only the latest in a series of such studies -- I did one myself for MarAd back in the 70's (when there were still direct subsidies, before Reagan) which came to the same conclusion, just different absolute numbers; it was when that one got publicized in the Journal of Commerce (daily shipping newspaper in NY) that I found myself testifying before Congress on the subject, which was an interesting experience. Foreign flag is not done primarily to avoid US taxes or even to operate less safely, certainly not in the case of cruise ships.  Cost, specifically labor cost, is the driver.  No US flag cruise ship can compete, period.  PofA is in a trade where it doesn't have to compete which is why it can survive. Note that the costs shown in the MarAd study are for cargo vessels -- IIUC, in addition to navigation crew, a US flag cruise ship would have to have most or all of its hotel crew as US citizens as well, further enlarging the crew cost gap, but I'm not sure of the details.

 

If as a matter of national policy the US feels foreign flag cruise ships don't pay their fair share of taxes, it could easily put a non-evadable head tax on pax, paid by the operators, to replace the "lost" income taxes. End of discussion about that.

 

[chengkp75]

20 minutes ago, jan-n-john said:

IIUC, in addition to navigation crew, a US flag cruise ship would have to have most or all of its hotel crew as US citizens as well, further enlarging the crew cost gap, but I'm not sure of the details.

Yes, as I said about the POA, everyone who has an emergency duty on a ship is considered to be "crew", and therefore must be fully credentialed merchant mariners.  And, US flag requires all licensed officers to be US citizens, and at least 75% of all crew to be US citizens, and the remainder can be US Resident Aliens.

 

I'm not sure how "US maritime policy shoots itself in the foot", except in my contention that the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, not the Jones Act or PVSA, was the driving force that killed the overseas US merchant marine.  The use of the construction and operating subsidies caused our industry to atrophy the US's natural drive towards innovation, where we could have made up for higher crew costs by more innovative shipbuilding and ship design.  Despite US crew wages being essentially flat over the 45 years of my career, we are still far behind foreign flag operators in operating costs.

 

As for a "head tax", I'm afraid that would end up just like the PVSA fines, passed to the passenger by a clause in the ticket contract, driving up cruise fares.

[Griller]

On 4/22/2020 at 1:13 AM, dag144 said:

Sort of the same thing.  Most viewers will know what I am talking about.  But thanks for the correction.

Not the same thing at all

Why don't you talk about a subject you know something about?

[jan-n-john]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

Yes, as I said about the POA, everyone who has an emergency duty on a ship is considered to be "crew", and therefore must be fully credentialed merchant mariners.  And, US flag requires all licensed officers to be US citizens, and at least 75% of all crew to be US citizens, and the remainder can be US Resident Aliens.

 

I'm not sure how "US maritime policy shoots itself in the foot", except in my contention that the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, not the Jones Act or PVSA, was the driving force that killed the overseas US merchant marine.  The use of the construction and operating subsidies caused our industry to atrophy the US's natural drive towards innovation, where we could have made up for higher crew costs by more innovative shipbuilding and ship design.  Despite US crew wages being essentially flat over the 45 years of my career, we are still far behind foreign flag operators in operating costs.

 

As for a "head tax", I'm afraid that would end up just like the PVSA fines, passed to the passenger by a clause in the ticket contract, driving up cruise fares.

I don't know whether hotel maids and bartenders, waiters and cooks etc. on cruise ships participate in emergency actions, but even if not the higher costs of people to fill those jobs, if they must be US cits or green card holders, compared to the compensation costs for similar posts on foreign flag cruise ships, still would be a significant additional driver of higher crew costs for a US flag cruise ship compared with a cargo ship. You served on PofA; what is the deal on those folks?

 

When I said "shoot in foot etc." I was referring to the entire range of requirements to operate under the US flag that drive up costs without a compensating improvement in the resulting operation to help them compete. As to whether "innovation" etc. could have overcome the input cost disadvantage (ie higher compensation costs for the same job)  I am a lot more pessimistic than you.  One hears all the time lines like "we can do it -- we just have to be creative" applied to all sorts of issues in all sorts of activities, but it's mostly pep talk not a realistic solution.  In every activity, each country has some advantages and some disadvantages, due to unyielding underlying economic (and other) factors. Starting mostly after WWII, the US had higher wages than everybody else, so had to gravitate to higher capital/lower wage economic activity. Operating ships isn't that, and others can do it cheaper, so the US flag gradually got eliminated from international trade, especially with a subsidy program that didn't work because it introduced unnecessary rigidities that themselves increased costs. The main "innovation" the US applied seems to have been to write rules that called for more crew, not less, which was going the wrong way.  It was only a matter of time.   

 

Of course a head tax would be ultimately paid by customers, like all costs.  But if you look at the "lost income taxes" and divide it by the number of embarkations (which I haven't), based on general business knowledge I'm confident the per head cost would be so little that it would have no noticeable effect on people's propensity to cruise; there's already a long list of such taxes and fees on air tickets that hardly anybody is aware of, and airlines do pay taxes.  The point is, done correctly, it would eliminate a major anti-cruise (foreign flag ship) talking point that one hears constantly and has IMO a major downside effect on the industry's relationship with the federal government, which certainly was a factor in them not getting any help in the latest COVID package.

Edited May 3, 2020 by jan-n-john

[chengkp75]

42 minutes ago, jan-n-john said:

I don't know whether hotel maids and bartenders, waiters and cooks etc. on cruise ships participate in emergency actions,

Yes, they do.  Typically your passenger muster station leader is a cabin steward or waitstaff.  Fire teams are made up of crew from all areas of the hotel staff, with usually only one engineering crew on each team.  For the POA, with a 900+ crew, about 750 will have emergency duties specified:  fire teams, medical teams, muster leaders, crew who direct passengers during emergencies, crew who "clear" cabins to ensure occupants are out, etc, and the rest will be listed as "assist as directed", meaning they are on "standby" for when the on-scene commander needs more manpower.

 

42 minutes ago, jan-n-john said:

The main "innovation" the US applied seems to have been to write rules that called for more crew, not less, which was going the wrong way. 

This was an outgrowth of the MMA of 1936, where increased crew costs were passed to the taxpayer via the subsidies.  As I said, we should have been leading in going to smaller, better trained crew, given more technology to aid that smaller crew to do the same job, as is done today with today's "unattended engine rooms", and bridge automation.

 

42 minutes ago, jan-n-john said:

Starting mostly after WWII, the US had higher wages than everybody else, so had to gravitate to higher capital/lower wage economic activity. Operating ships isn't that, and others can do it cheaper, so the US flag gradually got eliminated from international trade, especially with a subsidy program that didn't work because it introduced unnecessary rigidities that themselves increased costs

I will disagree with you about ships not being a higher capital/lower wage activity.  The most significant lack of innovation that the US merchant marine faced after WW2 was that the rest of the world adopted the marine diesel engine for propulsion.  Fuel was expensive outside the US at the time, and labor was cheap, so this fuel efficient mode of propulsion was attractive to the rest of the world.  But in the US, fuel was cheap and labor was expensive, so we stayed with the steam propulsion plant, with it's inherent inefficiency, but very low maintenance requirements, right up until the Oil Embargo when fuel prices woke everyone up to the savings of diesel.  I believe that if the US had embraced the diesel engine back in the 50's, then we would have designed innovative automation to reduce the manning and maintenance required to keep this efficient plant operating, and this would have led to a much different picture of the US merchant marine.

 

The subsidies did not introduce "rigidities", but it did make any thought of looking at the problem from a different perspective unattractive, since the simple expedient of using more, higher cost labor to build a ship, or more, higher cost labor to operate that ship, didn't cost labor or management a thing.  The subsidy did what it was designed to do, get the US merchant marine ready for WW2, but they should have been scrapped after the war.

 

As to a "head tax", looking at Carnival Corp, and assuming that all operations were US based, for simplicity, they had 2019 net income of $423 million, so tax that at the corporate rate of 20%, that's $84 million, with ALBD (basically pax-days) of 21.7 million, so that would work out to roughly $4/pax/day.  How many screams do you hear on CC when the DSC goes up by $0.75 per day?

Edited May 3, 2020 by chengkp75

[katisdale]

I have a neighbor who was a pilot (now retired). He would not want the PVSA nor the Jones Act changed. He says the only thing keeping the US airlines in business is that foreign airlines cannot take a passenger from one US city to another US city without first stopping at a foreign airport. In other words, he explained that British Airways for example can fly from London Heathrow to an American city, perhaps JFK, but cannot fly from JFK to St. Louis. The plane would have to go to a foreign airport before going to Missouri. I have no personal knowledge of what rules this entails but I found this intriguing.

[jan-n-john]

6 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Yes, they do.  Typically your passenger muster station leader is a cabin steward or waitstaff.  Fire teams are made up of crew from all areas of the hotel staff, with usually only one engineering crew on each team.  For the POA, with a 900+ crew, about 750 will have emergency duties specified:  fire teams, medical teams, muster leaders, crew who direct passengers during emergencies, crew who "clear" cabins to ensure occupants are out, etc, and the rest will be listed as "assist as directed", meaning they are on "standby" for when the on-scene commander needs more manpower.

 

This was an outgrowth of the MMA of 1936, where increased crew costs were passed to the taxpayer via the subsidies.  As I said, we should have been leading in going to smaller, better trained crew, given more technology to aid that smaller crew to do the same job, as is done today with today's "unattended engine rooms", and bridge automation.

 

I will disagree with you about ships not being a higher capital/lower wage activity.  The most significant lack of innovation that the US merchant marine faced after WW2 was that the rest of the world adopted the marine diesel engine for propulsion.  Fuel was expensive outside the US at the time, and labor was cheap, so this fuel efficient mode of propulsion was attractive to the rest of the world.  But in the US, fuel was cheap and labor was expensive, so we stayed with the steam propulsion plant, with it's inherent inefficiency, but very low maintenance requirements, right up until the Oil Embargo when fuel prices woke everyone up to the savings of diesel.  I believe that if the US had embraced the diesel engine back in the 50's, then we would have designed innovative automation to reduce the manning and maintenance required to keep this efficient plant operating, and this would have led to a much different picture of the US merchant marine.

 

The subsidies did not introduce "rigidities", but it did make any thought of looking at the problem from a different perspective unattractive, since the simple expedient of using more, higher cost labor to build a ship, or more, higher cost labor to operate that ship, didn't cost labor or management a thing.  The subsidy did what it was designed to do, get the US merchant marine ready for WW2, but they should have been scrapped after the war.

Thank you for fleshing that out a bit.

 

My main point about maids and bartenders is, do they have to be US cits or green card holders?  If so, that adds rocket fuel to the pumped up cost of operating a theoretical US flag cruise ship, thus adding to the impossibility of competing in any foreign trade. 

 

With regard to steam turbines, isn't it a little more complicated than that?  Say there are (were) US flag and foreign flag in a given route.  Is it not true that a no matter what flag a ship has, it will buy fuel wherever it can get it cheapest, and if so there should be no difference imposed by the US flag vs. a foreign flag (in international service).  So if so, why did foreign flag operators not continue with steam and just buy fuel it in the US?  If it was due to labor cost, that derives from US policy forcing them to use high cost US cits.  But is it also because they had to buy engines in the US and since there weren't any US low speed diesel builders at so they were stuck? Either way the problem goes back to US "buy America" policy.

 

One important rigidity in the operating subsidy program was that to get it the US flag operator had to sign up to serve a specific defined trade route (TR 1 or TR 17 for example) and didn't have flexibility to move ships around when appropriate as did his foreign flag competition.  That rigidity was very costly, and trust me I heard about that a lot from US companies back in those days. For this reason and many other rigidities in the subsidy program, the subsidy did not really make up for the costs imposed by the US flag.  In fact, because of these rigidities, Sea Land didn't bother with subsidies -- they managed to just swallow it (because in container operations labor is a small cost anyway) and ran their business in spite of it. That was a special case and it worked for a while but in the end they lost; the SL 7's and high fuel cost eventually did them in and along came Maersk.

 

[jan-n-john]

31 minutes ago, jan-n-john said:

 

 So if so, why did foreign flag operators not continue with steam and just buy fuel it in the US?  If it was due to labor cost, that derives from US policy forcing them to use high cost US cits.  But is it also because they had to buy engines in the US and since there weren't any US low speed diesel builders at so they were stuck? Either way the problem goes back to US "buy America" policy.

 

Sorry I garbled up that US flag steam discussion, and I missed the edit window.  Try this

 

So if so, why didn't foreign flag operators also continue with steam and just buy cheap fuel in the US? Obviously they didn't, but US operators did. Was the US operators' staying with steam actually due to higher labor cost? Or was the real issue that there weren't any US low speed diesel builders so they were stuck? Either way the root of the problem goes back to US "buy America" policy imposed arbitrarily by law.

 

[caribill]

7 hours ago, katisdale said:

I have a neighbor who was a pilot (now retired). He would not want the PVSA nor the Jones Act changed. He says the only thing keeping the US airlines in business is that foreign airlines cannot take a passenger from one US city to another US city without first stopping at a foreign airport.

 

Or, they could stay in business if they treated passengers as well as many foreign airlines do.

[chengkp75]

12 hours ago, jan-n-john said:

My main point about maids and bartenders is, do they have to be US cits or green card holders?  If so, that adds rocket fuel to the pumped up cost of operating a theoretical US flag cruise ship, thus adding to the impossibility of competing in any foreign trade. 

Yes, everyone on a US flag cruise ship, from the dishwasher and garbage sorter to the Captain must be either a US citizen or a US Resident Alien.  NCL did successfully petition Congress, over the USCG's objections, to get a new class of crew, the NRAC (Non-Resident Alien Crew).  NCL wanted experienced supervisors from their fleet to be able to train US crew on POA in better customer service.  These supervisors are not resident aliens, they live in their home countries, but must pass all of the documentation and training that US crew do, and must pay US taxes and Social Security, but they also receive US wages.  These NRAC crew can replace some or all of the 25% allowable Green Card holders, but non-citizens can never exceed 25% of crew.

 

As for the steam v diesel discussion, steam plants, at their best are about 47% total thermal efficiency (taking the heat value of the fuel and changing it into work), mainly due to the inherent loss of heat in the latent heat of condensation where heat is given up by the exhaust steam to sea water to condense the steam back to water to be pumped back to the boiler.  A diesel engine, by itself is over 51% efficient, and when combined with things like exhaust gas boilers, waste heat evaporators, and even steam turbines driven by steam generated by the diesel engine's exhaust gas heat, you get up into the 70% total efficiency range.  So, the diesel plant is by its very nature more efficient, so uses whatever fuel you buy, expensive or cheap better.  And, you buy fuel where you need it, if you're not around the US, you can't take advantage of the cheaper price.

 

As for not being any slow speed engine manufacturers in the US, that was again simply because there was no demand for them at the time, and also the high cost of production (labor).  The first diesel powered US flag ships did in fact have engines partially built in the US, Massey Ferguson got a temporary license from Sulzer to manufacture crankshafts and connecting rods for the engines.  There are really only two slow speed diesel manufacturers in the world (Wartsila which bought Sulzer, and MAN), but they license their design to companies around the world to build the engines (8 in China, 4 in Japan, and 3 in South Korea).  So, if there had been a demand for the engines, and economic viability, there could have been engines built in the US.

 

And, as is the case today, Jones Act compliant tankers and container ships (meaning "built" in the US) have engines made in Korea, and China.  The term "US built" allows for a percentage of content to be from overseas.  For the vast majority of Jones Act tankers working today, only the hull steel was made and the hull fabricated in the US, everything else was brought over from overseas. 

[jan-n-john]

12 hours ago, katisdale said:

I have a neighbor who was a pilot (now retired). He would not want the PVSA nor the Jones Act changed. He says the only thing keeping the US airlines in business is that foreign airlines cannot take a passenger from one US city to another US city without first stopping at a foreign airport. In other words, he explained that British Airways for example can fly from London Heathrow to an American city, perhaps JFK, but cannot fly from JFK to St. Louis. The plane would have to go to a foreign airport before going to Missouri. I have no personal knowledge of what rules this entails but I found this intriguing.

I'm sure your neighbor is (was) a fine pilot, but pilots are usually not very reliable sources of good information about airline business matters and regulation.

 

Briefly, what you are talking about is called cabotage.  It started out as a maritime shipping term but nowadays is applied to all forms of transportation. Cabotage would occur if a non-national carrier (transportation company registered or "flagged" elsewhere) carried goods or people between two points in that given country; hypothetical examples would include British Airways or Maersk shipping or Princess Cruises providing carriage of passengers or cargo within the US, say from NY to Miami. Same thing if United Airlines tried to sell tickets from say London to Manchester.

 

The key thing is that, with limited exceptions, every country bans cabotage -- generally, no country allows non-national carriers to serve its domestic commerce.  In the US maritime sector, this restriction is embedded in the Jones Act and PVSA, and there are other laws covering aviation.  Pretty much every other country of consequence has similar laws that cover maritime and air, and even trucking etc. as appropriate; there's nothing unusual about this. There are exceptions, e.g. among EU and NAFTA countries, but these are usually limited and very specific.

 

So banning cabotage, such as the US banning foreign airlines or ships from serving within the US, is national policy everywhere, not just the US. There is not and never was any serious thought among those in charge of opening up the US to cabotage, and it is not fundamentally based on concern about "cheap" foreign competition; everybody does it.

 

But here's the thing.  Your pilot friend is obviously wrong on another key point -- US airlines are clearly competitive with other countries' airlines; they prove that every day with their international services where they do just fine thank you. Even if a foreign carrier were hypothetically allowed to set up a service in the US (or Britain or the EU), there is little reason to think it would have any significant competitive advantage. Its factor costs and efficiencies are mostly the same as US carriers. Same airplanes, same fuel, same maintenance, and so on.  Even airlines like say Emirates mostly use cockpit crews from developed countries and pay similar salaries.  Cockpit compensation costs may be higher among European lines than US carriers. Bottom line is that even if foreign airlines could set up in the US there is no basis to think they could out compete US carriers. US aviation law is not "the only thing keeping US airlines in business."

 

This is, of course, not exactly true in the realm of maritime shipping.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by jan-n-john

[Roberto256]

14 hours ago, Griller said:

Why don't you talk about a subject you know something about?

 

Can you imagine if there was such a requirement on cruise critic!!!

 

As a business, CC would fail, as their page views went to zero.

 

[skynight]

Chengkp75. Thank you for all your posts and expertise.

Regarding your comments of the old steam ships vs. diesel. Can you comment on the new LNG ships in terms of efficiency and pollution?

 

[chengkp75]

4 minutes ago, skynight said:

Chengkp75. Thank you for all your posts and expertise.

Regarding your comments of the old steam ships vs. diesel. Can you comment on the new LNG ships in terms of efficiency and pollution?

 

Well, the LNG ships are still diesel powered, just using a different fuel.  And what many don't know is that these are not strictly LNG fueled.  First off, LNG diesels used on land need a spark plug to start ignition, since LNG will not self-ignite from the heat of compression, much like diesel powered cars and buses.  That's not practical on large marine engines, so about 5% diesel is injected with the LNG to "get the ball rolling".  Secondly, the engines can run on any combination of gaseous fuel (LNG) and liquid fuel (diesel or residual fuel), from 95% LNG to 0% LNG.  So, when not absolutely necessary to meet emissions standards (like outside an ECA), the ship could switch away from LNG, saving on this fuel that requires about 6 times the storage volume for the same amount of heat energy.  So, an LNG fueled ship will be essentially just as thermally efficient as a diesel or residual fuel powered ship.  The LNG may come out slightly behind both diesel and residual fuels, because of the energy required to store the LNG, but it would be probably less than 1% difference.

 

As for pollution, while LNG will result in lower SOX, NOX, and CO2 emissions, there is the potential for "methane slip" either in the transporation and bunkering aspects of fuel usage, or in non-combusted fuel exhausted from the engine, and as everyone now knows, methane, even from cattle burping, is a potent greenhouse gas.  So, there are benefits, and there are drawbacks, just like most things in this world, and nothing is a complete panacea.

[skynight]

Chengkp75

Thank you

[caribill]

17 hours ago, jan-n-john said:

 

But here's the thing.  Your pilot friend is obviously wrong on another key point -- US airlines are clearly competitive with other countries' airlines; they prove that every day with their international services where they do just fine thank you.

 

 

 

They may do just fine on pricing, but not on service. Compare UAL or Delta to Asia with the service on Cathay Pacific or JAL or Singapore Airlines or a number of other foreign airlines.

[caribill]

On 5/2/2020 at 7:20 PM, Robinsoncruiseso said:

 Take a look at some US flagged ships.  How about the new VIking Mississippi cruises, or American Cruise Line.  Better yet, price out a one way trip from Bellingham to Juneau with bunk beds and no meals on the Alaska Ferry.  You will see that it would price out many of the current cruisers. Even those that could comfortably afford may no longer see the value of the cruise. 

 

I looked at pricing for a couple of Viking Mississippi cruises.

 

They ranged from $528 to $627 per person per night.

[jan-n-john]

4 hours ago, caribill said:

 

They may do just fine on pricing, but not on service. Compare UAL or Delta to Asia with the service on Cathay Pacific or JAL or Singapore Airlines or a number of other foreign airlines.

 

You're certainly not the first person to make that point; maybe more like the 10 zillionth. While there's some truth in it, IMHO there's also a lot of smoke and mirrors.  The most important variable in (cabin) service, and the only one that's really quantifiable, is seat room, and when I've looked at seat maps and sizes I have yet to find any systematic differences.  The interpersonal aspects are in the eye of the beholder.  It's true that the cabin crew on some Asian carriers is younger and more pleasing to the eye, especially the male eye, but keep in mind that the reason behind that is that some Asian carriers can keep the supply of sweet young things coming, by ditching the older ones at an early point; given US labor laws, US carriers don't have that option, and personally I view that as a good thing.

 

Whatever, the fact remains that US carriers compete and make money on their international services, which was the original point, meaning that hypothetically allowing foreign flag airlines to serve US city pairs certainly doesn't mean they would run US carriers "out of business."  In fact, the only more-or-less test case of such an effort I know of was Sir Richard's shot at it with Virgin America, and in the end that came up short.  

 

[Roberto256]

On 5/3/2020 at 11:35 AM, Charles4515 said:

Regardless the current model of stuffing ever more passengers on super mega ships was a model for huge profits to a few without regard to passenger or crew safety which helped transmit the virus. Almost every ship I have been on went to dry dock and came back with more cabins and less public space. Larger and larger profits and bonuses for doing that. No regard for safety, keep sailing during the epidemic and lie to the ports. The lines were getting greedier every year.

 

I agree with all of your comments, but there are many, many posts here by people who can't wait to get back to cruising.

 

No one cares about princess being fined for polluting.

No one cares about Regal's worst-ever USPH score.

People have even forgotten about tub chairs, and how small the balconies have become.

Lying to the ports ... already forgotten.

 

I think some of the people ... if their spouse contracted covid-19 ... the first thing they would want to know...

 

If spouse dies, so I am alone in cabin, do I get double cruise credits?

 

The second thing ... if spouse has to be medically disembarked, can I still finish the cruise?