Carnival Corp.’s efforts to attract passengers to its cruise ships have hit another hurdle.
The world’s largest cruise company canceled two of the three cruises planned for its AIDA line this month, after failing to obtain regulatory approval from the Italian government to set sail.
“Contrary to our expectations, final formal approval for the start of short trips from August 5, 2020 by our flag state, Italy, is still pending,” Carnival said in a press release Monday.
The announcement demonstrates the complicated global regulatory landscape in which Carnival and its biggest competitors, Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, must navigate to restart shipping while the pandemic still continues. Carnival, which maintains its corporate headquarters in Miami but its place of incorporation in Panama, operates its AIDA brand from Rostock, Germany. But the three AIDA ships that planned to start sailing again this month are “marked” or registered outside of Italy, meaning the country has the final say on whether or not the ships can carry customers on board.
Carnival has yet to cancel its third planned AIDA cruise this month, which is supposed to set sail on August 16. “We assume that we will receive the last formal approval from the Italian flag state in a timely manner,” the company said at its launch.
But the cancellations of the first two AIDA voyages do not bode well for Carnival’s plans to bring its ships back online this summer, as it struggles to recover from the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on its industry. The coronavirus effectively shut down cruises in March and has since started dozens of lawsuits about how Carnival handled the COVID-19 outbreaks on its ships earlier this year.
Now Carnival and its competitors are trying to convince both passengers and international government officials that it is safe to resume sailing, with limited and seemingly diminishing success. Last month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended its “no-sail” order for a second time, preventing ships from resuming passenger operations in US waters until at least September 30. .
As long as the cruise resumes, it will be a much smaller industry. Carnival, which reported a loss of $ 4.4 billion during the three months ending May 31, also said last week that it would divest two more cruise ships out of a fleet of 104 by the end of 2019. So far Carnival has announced plans to sell or sell Sell will recall 15 of its ships this year and is delaying delivery of the new ships it had previously ordered.
