BACKGROUND INFORMATION
On November 10th 2010 the
Carnival Cruise Lines ship, Carnival
Splendor, sustained an engine fire
whilst located off the West coast of
Mexico. There were no injuries to the
3,299 passengers or 1,167
crew members on board. As the ship could
not proceed under her own power, it was
necessary for her to be towed to San
Diego by other vessels, progressing at
very slow speed – an exercise which
eventually required 3 full days to
complete.
THE CHALLENGE
During the period of the emergency
caused by the fire on board the Carnival
Splendor, the members of the Carnival
Cruise Lines Care Team were required to
provide proper notification to the
emergency contact of the crew members,
of over 20 different nationalities, on
board the ship. Though there were no
injuries it was deemed inevitable that
families and friends would be anxious
about their loved ones and it was
therefore incumbent upon the ship’s
Operator to keep all parties fully
informed. This function was undertaken
by The Family Support Centre (part of
the Carnival Care Team, based in Miami,
FL) which is composed of 47 Agents (10
of whom were dedicated to calling
emergency contacts of the crew members).
THE SOLUTION
FROM CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES
QUOTE:
For over
2 years the Carnival Group has utilised
the ‘On Demand’ Telephone Interpreting
facility provided by LangCommLive - part
of The Transatlantic Translations Group.
LangCommLive provides instant access,
24/7, to interpreters covering over 150
languages, and has been of great use to
the Carnival Group on a number of
occasions. Without being in a position
to offer any prior warning to
LangCommLive, our Family Support Centre
was able to contact the relatives and
friends of all 1,167
crew
members of the Carnival Splendor, in
order to advise them of the on board
situation, and to answer any questions
that they might have. All conversations
in foreign languages were conducted by
means of 3 way telephone calls involving
a Carnival Agent, a LCL Interpreter, and
the crew member’s emergency contact.
As a Company, we have previously used
the LangCommLive facility, however, in
the space of 3 days, we dialed LCL
interpreters 405 times. We used them
across 28 languages (from Belarusian to
Ukrainian). The average time to connect
to an interpreter across all 405 calls
was 37 seconds, and there were no
dropped calls, or failed connections.
UNQUOTE.
|
RECOMMENDATION
QUOTE :
From: Vladimir Lindor.
Specialist, CareTeam Services,
Carnival Cruise Lines
“During the period of the
fire on board the Carnival
Splendor, we were tasked with
providing proper notification to
the emergency contact of all of
the crew members (of over 20
different nationalities) on
board the ship. |
 |
We had about 10 Agents in our Family
Support Centre who, during the week,
contacted the relatives of all persons
concerned, in the course of the
fulfilment of this important task.
With a large proportion of the calls,
an interpreter was needed to relay
clearly our position to the crew
members’ emergency contact. The
LangCommLive interpreters delivered the
messages very professionally, and also
assisted in the transmission of any
other information, as requested.
In all, over 400 calls, involving 28
languages, were made over the period of
the emergency using the LCL facility.
The entire process was very user
friendly and we were able to provide
important up-to -date information to the
relatives of each crew member.
We are pleased to have partnered with
LCL, and are very pleased with the
attention and service they continue to
provide. LCL has worked with each
respective user to customise the system
according to our specific needs.”
UNQUOTE.
SUMMARY
Thankfully, on this occasion, the
emergency did not involve any fatalities
or injuries to any of the crew members
or passengers however, the absolute
importance of good communication when
faced with a crisis or disaster cannot
be underestimated. The LangCommLive
service was immediately accessible
without any prior notification to the
Company, or to its large panel of
interpreters. LCL was able to absorb,
without difficulty, this significant -
and sudden - uplift in call traffic from
Carnival.
