CEO says this could be as early as year-end in core markets

When will cruise ships get back to 100 per cent capacity is a hot question, but Royal Caribbean is pushing for a year end time line.

While speaking at the Seatrade Global 2021 conference held earlier this week, Royal Caribbean Group Chairman Richard Fain was asked his thoughts on getting back to full capacity as early as next year.

In response he said: “In terms of numbers, next year, I definitely think.

He however that ”in our core markets, we expect to be essentially there by the end of this year”.

Fain did not elaborate what “core markets” exactly meant, but explained that Royal Caribbean International ships have been sailing at reduced capacity since they restarted operations and there have been no public announcements as to how full any ship or sailing would be going forward. The Royal Caribbean chairman expressed the belief misinformation about the restart process has been an issue for customers, travel agents, and industry professionals.

Said Fain: “I think a key issue here is there’s so much misinformation out there on so many topics… . It’s been a difficult year for all of our partners here in the audience who have also had to deal with this and our travel advisory partners. But one of the things that’s caused a lot of confusion is we’ve canceled cruises. Do you get your rebate? You take a future cruise credit. That’s very confusing.”

Fain echoed sentiments he shared last week, in a video update, that the upcoming booking season in early 2021 will be an important time to step up and show the public that cruise ships are ready to sail.

“What we really want to do is make sure that when we start that key booking period, our ships are operating,” the Fain said.

He sought to reassure the cruise shipping market that Royal Caribbean is up and ready to roll out its full capacity of ships, adding that “they can see they’re operating, they can see the protocols are working, they can see people are taking cruises, they’re not going to worry about cancellations and this or that. So we really need to get back to a period of stability”.

Last week, Fain said he wanted nearly all ships back in operation “by the end of this year”.

He added: “We want virtually all of our ships to be operating and operating seamlessly in our core markets.”