Saga plc, the UK based listed cruises to financial services group that serves the over 50s market, has retained its earnings guidance unchanged until its 2019 results are due on 2 April and says its cruise operations had 80% of targeted revenue booked at the end of February.

“For our Cruise business, bookings until recently have been very strong, with forward sales for the current year of 80% of the full year revenue target as of 29 February.  The remaining 20% of our full year revenue target is weighted towards Q3 and Q4 2020 cruise,” the company said in a statement.. 

“While we have seen a higher level of cancellations for departures in the near-term and more generally a lower level of bookings for departures further out, our two most recent departures had load factors of around 80%,” Saga said.

Its two ships only depart and return to UK ports and we have flexibility on destinations visited. Saga Cruises will take delivery of Sprit of Adventure, the second of two newbuildings of about 56,000 gross tons, from Meyer Werft this year. The 1981 built Saga Sapphire of 37,012 gross tons has been sold to Turkish buyers.

As at 31 January 2020, and based on unaudited financial information, the Ggroup's net short-term bank debt was around £110m, reduced from £148m as at 31 July 2019.

Since the end of January, the group has announced two disposals which are expected to generate net cash proceeds of around £37m in the first half of this year. The cash from disposals will be used to further reduce short-term bank debt, Saga said.

In line with many other travel stocks, shares in saga have suffered deep losses in the past few weeks.