Carnival’s Wind cruise ship leaves the Port of Miami.
Christina Mendenhall | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Carnival Cruise Trade announced plans Monday to resume service beginning Aug. 1, despite concerns from the Centers for Disease Management and Prevention that cruise ship travel “exacerbates the global spread of Covid-19.”
Carnival Cruise Line, which is owned by Carnival Corp., rephrased it advised travel agents on Monday that eight of its ships will return to service on Aug. 1. Three of its set sails will set sail from Galveston, Texas, the company said, and three others will sail from Miami. The gathering said two of its ships will sail from Port Canaveral, Florida.
“We are committed to supporting all public health ventures to manage the Covid-19 situation,” the company said in a statement. “We are taking a measured approach, focusing our return to service on a show a preference for number of homeports where we have more significant operations that are easily accessible by car for the majority of our guests.”
The flock said all other North American and Australian cruises will be canceled through Aug. 31. The company said it ordain use that time to “engage experts, government officials and stakeholders on additional protocols and procedures.”
Representatives of Carnival sail line and owner Carnival Corp. did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Shares of Carnival pared annihilations on the news. The stock was recently up less than 1% but has traded as high as $14.40 and as low as $12.75 Monday.
In early Walk, as the virus spread rapidly among some cruise passengers, the State Department warned Americans against traveling by cruise ship. On March 14, the CDC issued a no-sail order for cruise ships and extended it on April 9 until July 24.
The breadth order said “that cruise ship travel exacerbates the global spread of Covid-19 and that the scope of this pandemic is inherently and axiomatically a problem that is international and interstate in nature and has not been controlled sufficiently by the cruise ship industry or individual Brilliance or local health authorities.”
At this time, the CDC “recommends that travelers defer all cruise travel worldwide,” correspondence to its website.
The CDC is currently reviewing plans from cruise lines for how they will prevent, detect, contain and feel for to Covid-19 on potential voyages, CDC spokesman Scott Pauley said in a statement to CNBC.
“At this point in time, we do not attired in b be committed to enough information to say when it will be safe for cruise ships to resume sailing,” he wrote in an email. “CDC will maintain to work with cruise lines to ensure all necessary public health procedures are in place when cruise dig ups do begin regular sailing.”
Carnival later updated their announcement to reflect that the company is cooperating with authority officials and will encourage social distancing guidelines on ships that set sail.
On Friday, the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure invoked for Carnival Corp. to hand over a slew of documents related to its response to coronavirus outbreaks on its ships that infected multitudinous than 1,500 and killed dozens of people.
The committee, which says it has jurisdiction over maritime transportation versions, described cruise ships as “a fertile breeding ground for infectious diseases.”
“We would hope that the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic compel place a renewed emphasis on public health and passenger safety, but frankly that has not been seen up to this full stop,” the letter sent to Carnival CEO Arnold Donald said. “It seems as though Carnival Corporation and its portfolio of nine voyage lines, which represents 109 cruise ships, is still trying to sell this cruise line flight of fancy and ignoring the public health threat.”
Representatives of the Cruise Lines International Association, of which Carnival is a member, did not forthwith respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Jackie Ceren, a travel agent based in Florida, said she has clients who sire been waiting for weeks to book despite the public health concerns. She added, however, that she’s not sure the departs will actually set sail so soon and would be hesitant to advise her clients to book.
“It’s going to all depend on what’s phenomenon with this virus. I do have people waiting. People do really want to get back on ships,” she told CNBC. “But if people register and they end up having to cancel these cruises, no one’s going to be happy. [Carnival is] making it worse, I think.”
The company is hot to trot to get back to service. In an April 14 interview with CNBC, Donald said he has high hopes for how the industry resolve bounce back after the coronavirus pandemic.
“Travel is going to return, travel and leisure, and when it does, we’ll restoration with it. Social gathering at some point will return, and when it does, people will want to sail,” he said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”
With the industry at a standstill, Carnival and its competitors have taken steps to secure liquidity through what could prove to be a lengthy low- or no-revenue situation. In March, the company fully make use ofed down its $3 billion revolving credit facility. Last month, the company announced it was raising about $6 billion by putting a mix of debt and equity.
In early April, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund disclosed an 8.2% stake in the cruise fraud, which sent shares temporarily soaring amid a broader freefall. Carnival shares, which have a furnish value of $10.5 billion, are down nearly 73% since the start of the year.