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Costa Cruises refund offer called ‘insulting’
Costa Cruises are offering a surprising form of compensation for victim: a refund and 30 percent off a new cruise, and are denying reports in the New York Times that there were unregistered passengers on board the stricken ship.
"The company is not only going to refund everybody, but they will offer a 30 percent discount on future cruises if they want to stay loyal to the company," said a spokesman for the cruise line.
Newser called it a "strange way" to compensate victims.
"It is a ridiculous and insulting offer," one survivor told the New York Daily News.
Lawsuits are being launched against Costa Cruises in Italy and the US. More than 100 survivors are expected to join a class action suit against the company this week in Miami.
Passengers in the lawsuit are seeking about $160,000 each or $513 million for all 3,206 passengers.
Costa Cruises also denied the reports of unregistered passengers on the Concordia.
The shifting numbers of missing people has caused some news media outlets to speculate there were unregistered passengers on the ship with the latest death toll up to 13. About 20 people are still listed as missing, said the Times.
Italian officials have given conflicting reports of the number of people still missing. They said the confusion might have been caused by the presence of unregistered passengers.
"There could have been X persons whom we don’t know about, who were inside, who were clandestine" passengers, Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official in charge of the rescue effort, told reporters at a briefing.
At the same time, Italian officials released a transcript with the captain. Francesco Schettino, saying company officials had asked the ship to swing close to shore. The captain said this was an ongoing procedure as a "publicity stunt," which the cruise line denied.
The captain, who cited his accidental fall into a rescue boat as the reason for his leaving the ship while there were still passengers on it, is under house arrest and charged with manslaughter.
By David Wilkening
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