"Virus dynamics not understood": Carnival boss expects difficult years to come

Sunday March 14th 2021

"Virus dynamics not understood"
Carnival boss expects difficult years to come

The cruise industry is struggling with a huge loss of confidence due to corona outbreaks on ships. According to Carnival boss Donald, the pre-crisis level will not be reached until 2023 at the earliest. He defends that his fleet continued to sail despite the pandemic. He now wants to win new customers.

According to Carnival boss Arnold Donald, the cruise industry, which has been hard hit by the virus pandemic, has at least two more difficult years ahead of it. The industry is unlikely to reach the level of before the virus crisis before 2023, Donald told the Financial Times.

The entire fleet of the US cruise company could possibly sail again by the end of this year, but that is certainly not yet, according to Donald. 19 of the 107 ships were decommissioned during the crisis. In any case, it is likely to take longer before the income from the time before the outbreak of the pandemic is reached again.

Like the other cruise operators, Carnival is particularly suffering from the Corona crisis because the ships were not allowed to sail for months. Major outbreaks had occurred on the company's ships, which include the Aida, Costa and Princess brands. Several hundred corona cases on board the "Diamond Princess" became known at the beginning of February last year. The ship was quarantined off the coast of Japan and passengers and crew were not allowed to leave it. Carnival continued its cruises anyway and soon after made headlines with further outbreaks on other ships.

In an interview with the "Financial Times", Carnival boss Donald defends the decision to let the fleet continue. At the time, little was known about the virus. "The Diamand Princess was in Asia on the other side of the world … and even there people didn't really understand the dynamics of the action."

"Win new cruise customers"

At the same time, he admitted that the industry must now work harder to attract new customers who have never been on a cruise vacation. Carnival currently offers a limited number of cruises in Europe and Asia, some of which go to sea and return without stopping at ports.

The industry is one of those currently struggling desperately to get up and running again quickly. However, regulators are still hesitant. Britain wants to allow cruises in its waters again from May 17th. In the USA, the largest market, the authorities have yet to decide. You are considering strict rules such as on-board laboratory tests. So far, four cruise lines have stated that passengers must have been vaccinated. Donald said that such a decision for Carnival is premature given the age range of its customers.

Because of the corona-related business failure, the world's largest cruise company had made a net loss of $ 1.9 billion in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter, the minus was just under $ 2.9 billion. At the same time, however, the company closed fiscal 2020 with a lush cash cushion of $ 9.5 billion. Carnival therefore sees itself in a good position to survive 2021 as well.