Carnival Corporation & plc has released its fourth quarter activity report, which includes data on results and statistical information, bookings, financing, environment and other recent highlights.
Carnival Corporation & plc CEO Josh Weinstein commented: “Throughout 2022, we successfully returned our fleet to service, aggressively increasing occupancy at growing capacity, while driving passenger cruise day revenue above record 2019 levels, both in the fourth quarter and for the full year overall. We also actively managed our costs downward while investing to build future demand.”
Regarding fleet optimization, Carnival Corporation & plc plans to retire three smaller, less efficient ships. Two of these three ships belong to the Costa Cruises fleet as part of the company's strategy to adjust the brand's size in light of the closure of cruise operations in China, and Costa's significant presence there prior to the pause in cruise operations.
The two ships leaving the Costa Cruises fleet are the Costa Magica and the Costa Fortuna. This decision will not, in principle, affect the Costa Fortuna's current scheduled voyages.
Once completed in spring 2024, the company's fleet optimization strategy will have reduced Costa's capacity, bringing it closer to the 2019 capacity that Costa dedicated outside of Asia to its core markets in Continental Europe.
The company now expects total capacity growth of 3% for 2023 compared to 2019. This prudent capacity growth rate takes into account that newly delivered vessels will account for almost a quarter of the company's capacity.
Since the start of the pandemic, and with three more ships about to depart, Carnival has disposed of approximately 26 cruise ships during this time.
