One of Carnival Corporation’s eight cruise brands, AIDA Cruises is now the third-largest tour operator in Germany. In 2024, it achieved a record year in terms of turnover and guest numbers (which hit 1.5 million).
“Despite all the crises and economic challenges, Germans are keen to go on holiday more than ever,” says Felix Eichhorn, president of AIDA. “Holidays are being booked even earlier than in previous years. The cruise product is becoming increasingly attractive compared to land-based holidays due to its unbeatable price/experience ratio. We are seeing strong demand for cruises from German ports in particular. In summer, this accounts for almost 80 per cent of our guest volume. Cruises are the growth driver in tourism as a whole in Germany and the engine for employment. Nevertheless, cruises are still a niche market.”
Germans collectively take over 100 million holidays per year, but only three million of them cruise annually, which Eichhorn says means there is plenty of potential for cruise market growth which, he says, is only limited by the available capacity. Nevertheless, he believes “that the German cruise market will break the four million guest mark within the next 10 years”.
Growing the brand goes hand in hand with minimising the brand’s carbon footprint, says Eichhorn. “Shaping decarbonisation in practice is the greatest challenge facing our society. AIDA Cruises has a clear roadmap and is aiming for net-zero emissions in our fleet’s shipping operations by 2050. As a pioneer in the cruise industry, we have been investing in and utilising innovative environmental technologies for many years.”
The company is already doing more than is required by current industry regulations and recognises that there is no single solution for green shipping. However, its strategy is focused around five pillars: fleet optimisation, energy efficiency, efficient route planning, new technologies and alternative fuels.
To drive forward and implement its decarbonisation roadmap, AIDA has pooled its scientific and technical expertise into a decarbonisation department, which has been based at subsidiary Carnival Maritime in Hamburg, Germany, since spring 2022. Its work focuses on research and development, energy management, and data management and analysis.
“In the shipping sector, the cruise industry is driving the change, and we believe that we are the leaders in this field,” says Eichhorn. “Take shore power, for example. Our ships are docked in ports for around eight to 10 hours. During this time, we use electricity from shore, in regular operation mode. The important thing is that shore power should preferably be green energy, and we need reliable, competitive and affordable tariffs.”
AIDA made 65 connections to shoreside power in 2023, more than 350 in 2024 and aims to reach over 500 in 2025, primarily in Northern European ports. Almost every second call in Northern Europe already involves its ships connecting to shore power but the cruise ports in Southern Europe must ramp up the corresponding infrastructure before AIDA can expand usage there, says Eichhorn.
AIDAprima became the first cruise ship in the world to bunker with 100 per cent renewable biofuel when it called at the Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands, in September 2024
In addition, AIDA plans to expand its commitment to using alternative fuels in 2025. The brand has been using LNG fuel as a bridging technology for remaining operational while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions since 2018 but is now in talks with potential suppliers of other fuels.
In 2022, it was the first company in the world to use biofuel on a cruise ship (AIDAprima) and continues to test the viability of different fuels. “Whilst biofuel is an option, it needs to come from renewable sources, ensuring that no agricultural land for food production is used or forests have to be cut down,” explains Eichhorn.
AIDA is also exploring possible applications of electrofuels (e-fuels) for energy production onboard as an important part of its decarbonisation strategy. Both the dual-fuel engines on its LNG cruise ships, and the diesel engines on its other vessels, can be operated with alternatives, including bio-LNG or e-LNG and bio- or synthetic diesel respectively.
However, it’s not all plain sailing and there is much still to be done, says Eichhorn. “There are limiting factors here, such as the strong demand for e-fuels from aviation and other land-based energy-intensive industries. This has an impact on the availability of alternative fuels at an industrial level at economically viable prices. There is a lack of stable and, above all, global supply chains and refuelling infrastructure, but first and foremost there is an absence of standardised international regulations for the use of e-fuels, biofuels and other innovative technologies.”
Batteries and fuel cells are also part of the mix of potential solutions. The largest maritime battery storage system in the passenger shipping industry was retrofitted onboard AIDAprima in 2022, while a methanol-based fuel cell was installed onboard AIDAnova for demonstration purposes in summer 2022. The research project was completed and lessons learnt will be incorporated into future plans, says Eichhorn.
Another technology AIDA is using to increase energy efficiency is artificial intelligence. One of the most important investments currently being made in this area is the fleet-wide rollout of a specific digital data collection and analysis tool, developed within the Carnival Group and launched in 2024. The tool supports the crew in near-real-time decision-making about how to operate each ship most efficiently by optimising the energy flows onboard, or calculating the route to the next port with the lowest fuel consumption. Initial usage shows immediate savings in the energy required for propulsion and other onboard systems, such as air conditioning. “Our fuel consumption on a newbuild like AIDAcosma is around one-third today of what it was for a ship commissioned 20 years ago,” says Eichhorn. “Only a few industries can achieve that.”
Many of these achievements have been made with the help of the Fleet Operations Centre (FOC), which was established in 2015 as a maritime service unit and is part of Carnival Maritime. “With this significant investment, we have installed the most modern and innovative centre of its kind in Germany,” says Eichhorn. “With the new hardware and advanced software tailored to our specific maritime needs, we are setting new standards in the cruise industry.”
The FOC uses a digital ‘tactical table’ to simulate various sailing scenarios and conduct training sessions for AIDA’s crew members
The FOC uses a satellite-based, near-real-time monitoring system to collect millions of data points from 31 ships sailing for Carnival Corporation’s European brands – including 11 AIDA vessels – every day. It then analyses the data using digital algorithms, providing insights so crew can adjust the course of the voyage if necessary to suit the current conditions in the sailing area and optimise operations for maximum guest comfort. Digital analysis also identifies potential opportunities to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions by optimising fuel and energy consumption, routes, water management and various logistics processes in the more than 350 ports AIDA’s ships visit around the world.
The FOC has developed a tactical table (a digital workbench equipped with software) and a modern ship simulator to help present various scenarios and conduct individual training sessions for the cruise brands. “Compliance with environmental regulations is our top priority,” says Eichhorn. “The previous manual approach became increasingly complex and labour intensive, especially as new regulations were introduced worldwide. With this proprietary software solution, these tasks are automated and optimised, allowing us to effectively address future challenges.”
Software, which has been specially developed involving experts of Carnival Corporation, also helps to continuously improve environmental management in the interest of protecting sensitive marine ecosystems as effectively as possible. With a global digital environmental sea map installed on all ships, the FOC monitors more than 500 international and national environmental special zones, port regulations and the company’s own guidelines worldwide. In addition, technical control and analysis, combined with best-practice experiences, offer numerous approaches to developing innovative environmental and resource conservation projects in areas such as freshwater supply, wastewater treatment, and recycling and waste management.
Over the next two years, AIDA is investing millions to modernise its older ships to help decarbonise their operations. “As part of the AIDA Evolution future initiative, the largest fleet modernisation programme in our company’s history started in February 2025 with AIDAdiva docking [to be followed by AIDAluna and AIDAbella] in Chantier Naval in Marseille, France,” says Eichhorn. “We are very proud of this, as fleet optimisation is an important pillar of our AIDA decarbonisation strategy.”
In addition to new innovations and optimisations, AIDA cruises added popular concepts from its latest ships to AIDAdiva during the seven-week dry dock. “The wishes of our guests constantly spur us on to rethink the cruise experience and take existing concepts to the next level,” says Eichhorn. “The ships in the Sphinx series have written cruise history with their innovative room concept and design. We want to build on this with our AIDA Evolution programme. Our guests can enjoy even more variety of experiences, service and comfort onboard.”
Fleet modernisation projects, combined with decarbonisation initiatives, and both a high passenger return rate and around every second guest being a new customer in 2024, indicates that AIDA is set for a healthy and promising future, says Eichhorn. “This year is looking excellent so far. We will continue to grow profitably due to several factors, such as the unbroken trend towards advance bookings on premium price level and unrivalled price/experience ratio compared to shoreside vacation offers.”
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