By strict economic standards, building modern passenger ships to ply the Atlantic makes little sense. A luxury liner costs upwards of $50 million; a utilitarian jet costs one-tenth as much, can carry 15% more passengers over the same distance in the same amount of time. Moreover, the airlines have captured four-fifths of the Atlantic business, and several shipping companies are in trouble. These cold facts do not, however, chill the warmly sentimental directors of the state-run Italian Line. In the greatest investment in money and tonnage ever made by a shipping company in a single year, the line is introducing...
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