Carnival MaritimeNews

Carnival Maritime fully operational: Highest safety standards with new marine operations unit of the Costa Group

Hamburg, October 28, 2015 – The Costa Group implements digital support, control and planning of all technical and nautical aspects of the 25 cruise ships of Costa Crociere, Costa Asia and AIDA Cruises in real time. On the occasion of the new marine service unit becoming fully operational in Hamburg, Carnival Maritime today invited journalists and stakeholders to have a glimpse behind the scenes and granted insights into operations and risk & safety management. “By founding Carnival Maritime, we invested in the most elaborated technologies to create a Marine Operations Unit that supports our captains the best possible way”, explained Michael Thamm, CEO of the Costa Group.

With fully integrated, large fleet teams, Carnival Maritime improves the communication between ship and shore significantly. Among other things, the marine service unit is responsible for ship building, maintenance and refurbishment. Additionally, it takes care of trainings, route planning, technical procurement, medical services, support of the nautical and technical staff on board and auditing of the ships with regard to safety, hazard prevention and staff. Carnival Maritime is located in Hamburg and employs 150 specialists.

Digital control center on duty 24/7
The centerpiece of Carnival Maritime is the fleet operations center, FOC. All data come together here displayed on numerous monitors. In the event of safety concerns, the nautical officers on duty support the ships in risk and crisis management and in optimizing the route planning. The FOC operates 24 hours daily. 14 officers with professional experience run the safety center in shift operation. If required, further departments of Carnival Maritime are consulted like security, itinerary planning or medical. “It is our goal to pursue a ‚zero-incident‘-policy. Benchmark is the aviation industry”, says Jens Lassen, Executive Vice President of Carnival Maritime.

Not only safety - the environment benefits, too
By digital control, potentials for optimization regarding fuel and energy consumption as well as water and waste management can be leveraged. The significant amount of fuel that can be saved when using the motor in optimal condition is only one of many examples. Technical control and analysis combined with best practice experiences offer numerous approaches to develop innovative environmental and efficiency projects – for instance for the fresh water supply system, the wastewater treatment and waste management.

Hamburg offers many advantages
Carnival Maritime chose Hamburg as business location and important European harbor. “The city plays a key role within the maritime sector and therefore offers a well-developed infrastructure and a large talent pool of highly skilled professionals” explains Jens Lassen. “For us, an international crew with an excellent technical expertise and a corporate culture where the individual takes responsibility and an innovative approach to his or her duties, are important elements of a safety culture which we want to achieve group wide within the company“, Lassen continues. Also an important factor: the close proximity to partners in the marine industry and universities.

You can download the press release and pictures here