NEW YORK, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- A federal move to force foreign-flagged passenger ships to hold over in foreign terminals for 48 hours could hurt U.S. ports, analysts said Wednesday.
Cruise ships bearing foreign flags make token gestures at obeying an 1886 law by stopping for as little as an hour in foreign ports, the Newhouse News Service reported. A new effort to force them to meet the letter of the law would mean changes in cruise itineraries and put a crimp on the island-hoping style many vacationers favor.
"The proposal would cause immediate, significant economic harm to the U.S. port industry," said President of the American Association of Port Authorities Kurt Nagle.
"I wouldn't like it. When you take a cruise, you like to be able to see a lot of different islands," Terrance Purdy, a passenger, told Newhouse News before boarding a cruise vessel in Bayonne, N.J.
But enforcement is needed, the report said, or foreign-flagged vessels, the only ones that the law affects, would have an advantage over domestic ships.
