Carnival Corporation & plc, the world’s largest cruise shipping group, plans to continue the resumption of its services in a staggered manner, President and CEO Arnold Donald said in an interview.
Costa Crociere, the group’s Italian unit and AIDA Cruises in Germany are leading the process.
Looking forward, Donald said in a webcast interview by Travel Weekly in the UK that brands such as Holland America Line and Princess Cruises could restart operations either in the US or in another part of the world, depending on how the pandemic situation evolves.
The group has developed a number of scenarios that it will use in evaluating the next steps in the service restart process. In all of them, public health, compliance with local regulations and health and safety of passengers and crew are top priorities, he pointed out.
Moving to the group’s decision to increase the number of older ships it wants to remove from its fleet to 18, double the number first intended, Donald said before the Covid-19 pandemic, these ships had generated revenue.
In the present situation they do not, but incur significant expenses instead. As their earnings potential is lower than that of more efficient ships, the present crisis just accelerated their departure that would have happened in the near future anyway.
