By
Rebecca Gibson |
Carnival Corporation & plc is expected to order one or two cruise ships for delivery in 2017, says Robin Farley, cruise industry analyst at UBS Investment Research.
According to an e-mail Farley sent to investors on 11 June, the cruise company is likely to order the vessels this August and schedule delivery for 2017, as it has nothing on order past 2016.
“We see almost no chance of the company ordering more than the two to three ships per year to which it has limited itself, and in fact for 2017, a one-ship year could be more likely than a three-ship year,” said Farley. She estimated that ordering two new ships with roughly 3,600 berths each could cost Carnival Corporation around US$1.4 to US$1.7 billion.
If Carnival Corporation does order more ships, Farley said it is unlikely that they will join the Carnival Cruise Lines brand, which is due to take delivering of a prototype ship in December 2016, or Seabourn Cruises as it also has a 2016 delivery scheduled.
It is also improbable that the ships will be for the Holland America Line or P&O Cruises brands, which are scheduled to deliver ships in 2016 and 2015 respectively, as they are “not brands that need a new ship every year.” German operator AIDA Cruises will have delivered nine vessels over a ten-year period, so it is “not likely to get another in 2017.”
Farley noted that there are two Carnival brands in the running for new ships. She said: “We see two brands that could have room for a new delivery: the Princess brand will not have had a delivery for three years by then, while Costa will have gone almost three years without a delivery and could be sending more ships to China in the meantime.”
However, Farley said she “wouldn’t be surprised to see an unspecified order” from Carnival Corporation, explaining it could order a “platform of vessels” that could be used for several of its ten brands. The company would then not have to specify the brand until closer to delivery.
“We believe Carnival Corporation could be looking at a common platform that is used for new ship orders across four or five of its ten brands,” said Farley. “The cost-saving result is that the company could put in a two-ship order at a yard and be able to use the two ships for two different brands, and the flexibility for other brands would extend to follow-on options as well.”
Carnival Corporation has made no announcements yet about its firm plans for 2017 ship orders.
Orders from other cruise operators have already been announced, so it would be unlikely that they will deliver ships in 2017. “We already know orders from Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC for 2017, so there would be little chance of any other cruise capacity coming in the industry that we don’t already know about today,” said Farely. “Even a potential Virgin cruise start-up would be extremely unlikely to order for 2017, in our view.”