Slow steaming controversy

Slow steaming is being suggested by a number of cruise lines as a way of saving costs due to rising fuel prices, but there are challenges to this idea, both economic and legal. • On the economic side, unless the process is properly managed it could also increase the risk of machinery failure and could also mean that cruise ships have to auxiliary machinery such as stabilisers that would not be used during fast steaming, resulting in higher maintenance, replacement and associated costs. • On the legal side, there are complex contractual issues relating to charter-party clauses including the commitment to ‘prosecute a voyage with the utmost despatch’, an issue that recently went all the way to the House of Lords. Fuel surcharges that were levied at the beginning of the year have already been subject to legal judgement which required cruise companies to refund customers who’d been charged retrospectively.