| Carnival optimism

CARNIVAL Corporation has advised investors that it expects to have all of its nine brands – including P&O Cruises Australia – back in operation for the Northern Summer season.

Currently P&O Australia is the only outlier, with the other eight lines in the portfolio including Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America, Princess, Seabourn, Cunard, P&O Cruises UK, Costa and AIDA having all safely resumed cruising since the pandemic.

A corporate update issued by the company late last week advised of an “impact on bookings for our near-term sailings, including higher cancellations resulting from an increase in pre-travel positive test results and challenges in the availability of timely pre-travel tests”.

In addition, in recent weeks Carnival said it had seen a “dampening of the booking activity for the second half of 2022 relative to 2019”.

The company confirmed that it had worked closely with health and medical experts globally and nationally, as well as with authorities in destination countries, “to put in place comprehensive health and safety protocols for protection against and mitigation of COVID-19 across the entire cruise experience for all of our nine brands”.

Protocols continue to be updated based on evolving scientific and medical knowledge, Carnival added.