Royal Caribbean Group, the world’s second largest cruise shipping company that has a fleet of 61 ships, said its third quarter loss had widened slightly, but there were positive signs about the market and the outlook.

Net loss widened to $1.4 billion from $1.3 billion in the same period last year. More than half a million people had sailed the ships of the five brands of the Group since the restart of operations and both satisfaction scores and onboard spending per passenger had reached the highest levels in the company’s 51 year history.

"The ships that operated the Group's core Caribbean, Alaska, and Europe itineraries in the third quarter achieved a load factor of 44%. Core itineraries exclude sailings during the early ramp-up period of up to four weeks and also exclude specialized itineraries implemented during the COVID period (e.g., Singapore, Cyprus),' the company said in a statement.

"Total revenues per Passenger Cruise Day in the third quarter was up 12% versus record 2019 levels driven mainly by strong onboard revenue performance. Ships in core itineraries in the third quarter were cash flow accretive excluding start-up costs," RCL Group said.