Passenger Services Act
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The Passenger Services Act is a piece of United States legislation which came into force in 1886 relating to cabotage. Essentially, it says:
- No foreign vessels shall transport passengers between ports or places in the United States, either directly or by way of a foreign port, under a penalty of $300 for each passenger so transported and landed.
Any vessel subject to the Jones Act counts as a US vessel.Under the Passenger Services Act of 1886, 46 App. U.S.C. § 289, foreign-flagged vessels cannot transport passengers directly between U.S. ports. The handful of U.S.-flagged cruise ships in operation are registered in the U.S. to permit cruises between the Hawaiian Islands, or from the continental U.S. to Hawaii. The Passenger Services Act, however, does not prohibit foreign-flagged ships departing from and returning to the same U.S. port. Nor does it prohibit foreign-flagged ships departing from a U.S. port, visiting a foreign port, and then continuing to a second U.S. port. Nor does it prevent a ship from taking on passengers at a U.S. port and then returning them to another U.S. city by ground or air, or vice-versa.
Some exceptions have been made to the requirement of the Passenger Services Act. For example, Canadian vessels may transport passengers between Rochester and Alexandria Bay, New York and between southern Alaska and U.S. ports until such time as a U.S. carrier enters the market. The law has had an interesting consequence with regard to the cruise ship industry within the State of Hawaii. Foreign-flagged cruise ships may carry passengers between ports in the Hawaiian Islands as long as no passenger permanently leaves the vessel at ports other than the origination port and the vessel makes at least one call at a foreign port. Norwegian Cruise Line created a subsidiary, NCL America, and introduced three new US-flagged vessels: Pride of Aloha in 2004, Pride of America in 2005, and Pride of HawaiHawaiʻi in 2006. Previously, with its foreign-flagged vessels, NCL needed to include a four day detour to Tabuaeran (Fanning Atoll) in the Line Islands (Republic of Kiribati) on its Hawaiian itineraries.
