Royal Caribbean Group, the world’s second largest cruise shipping company, has reported a deep loss for both the final quarter and full year 2021 in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Net loss amounted to $1.36 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, little changed year on, while revenues increased to $982.4 million from a mere $34.1 million.

For the full year 2021, the Miami based company reported a loss of $5.26 billion compared to a $5.78 billion loss in 2020. Revenues decreased to $1.53 billion from $2.21 billion.

"2021 marked the beginning of our return to our mission of delivering the very best vacation experiences," said Jason Liberty, president and chief executive officer of the Royal Caribbean Group in a statement. "During 2021, we made significant progress toward our recovery with over 85% of our capacity returning to operations and delivering safe and memorable experiences to approximately 1.3 million guests at record guest satisfaction scores. Our team has worked tirelessly to execute our successful and healthy return, and we are grateful for their extraordinary efforts.”

In the fourth quarter, 12 additional ships returned to service. The company is thoughtfully ramping up the fleet and load factors while emphasising industry-leading health and safety standards, world-class guest experiences and financial prudence. 

Ships that operated the Group's core winter itineraries in the fourth quarter achieved a load factor of 65%. Core itineraries exclude sailings during the early ramp-up period of up to four weeks and exclude new itineraries implemented during the COVID period.  

Fourth quarter total load factor was 59%. Total revenue per Passenger Cruise Day in the fourth quarter was up 10% versus record 2019 levels driven by strong onboard revenue performance. Despite the impact from Omicron, total cash flow from ships in operation turned positive in the fourth quarter, the company said.