Carnival CEO Says All Their Ships Might Be Sailing by the End of the Year.

[ChucktownSteve]

But it will take two years longer to recover the revenues.  Do you believe Celebrity could have all their ships sailing by December and will the fares remain higher than average through 2023?

 

Carnival Corp CEO sees minimum of two more tough years for cruise industry: FT

BY Reuters — 1:38 AM ET 03/14/2021

 

(Reuters) - Carnival Corp  Chief Executive Arnold Donald anticipates at least two more tough years for the cruise industry, which is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels until at least 2023, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

 

The cruise company's full fleet might be sailing by the end of this year but it will take longer to recover to pre-crisis revenues, Donald told the newspaper in an interview.

 

Carnival in January reported a bigger-than-expected preliminary fourth-quarter net loss as business was brought to a virtual standstill by the coronavirus outbreak.

[paulh84]

He was first quoted making that statement around Jan 11th. A lot has changed in the past three months and sure, it sounds hopeful, but the full fleet??? 

 

Fares are going to increase unless the bottom completely falls out of the industry. Even before COVID there were analysts pushing that if they are seeing the demand and YOY passenger increases they say, prices need to come up because money is being left on the table. 

[marieps]

He may be setting the bar purposely low.  To repeat a statement first made two months earlier, before the dramatic progress on vaccine distribution sounds cautious to the extreme.  Perhaps he's trying to seed a revenue beat somewhere in the future.

[yorky]

There is a huge pent up demand for all forms of leisure when it returns, the UK is going to have a massive year with people staying in the country and prices have risen to match that demand. The cruise industry is going to be no different when it’s up and running again.

[Baron Barracuda]

I'm skeptical CCL can get back to their 2019 revenue total that quickly.  Remember they disposed of 18 ships last year representing 12% of total berths.  With new ship deliveries likely to be stretched out they'll need significant pricing increases to get there.

[NMTraveller]

The ships they disposed of had the lowest profit margins of the fleet.  Perhaps their newer ships coming online have higher margins...

[MarkWiltonM]

Vaccination progress varies from country to country. Europe is quite behind. I wonder if there will be cruises from U.S. ports restricted to U.S. passengers. Either that or proof of vaccination. Or both.

[LGW59]

8 hours ago, paulh84 said:

He was first quoted making that statement around Jan 11th. A lot has changed in the past three months and sure, it sounds hopeful, but the full fleet??? 

 

Fares are going to increase unless the bottom completely falls out of the industry. Even before COVID there were analysts pushing that if they are seeing the demand and YOY passenger increases they say, prices need to come up because money is being left on the table. 

Yes, Jan 11, now it's March 14, like it is a newsflash?  LOL 😲

[Baron Barracuda]

4 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

The ships they disposed of had the lowest profit margins of the fleet.  Perhaps their newer ships coming online have higher margins...

Question was about revenue, not profit margins.  Road back to profitability will be a lot longer with all that additional debt to service.