Carnival Corporation has announced a net loss of $2.2 billion for Q4 of 2020, as the cruise giant continues plans to update the fleet in light of the pandemic.

In its preliminary financial information report, the company said that “cumulative advanced bookings for the first half of 2022 are ahead of 2019, despite minimal advertising or marketing”.

The corporation also plans to remove a total of 19 ships – 15 of which have already left the fleet – representing approximately 13 per cent of pre-pause capacity and three per cent of operating income in 2019.

The statement added that Carnival is preparing for one more ship to be delivered in fiscal 2021, compared to five ships that were originally scheduled for delivery. Carnival Cruise Line recently welcomed the 5,200-guest Mardi Gras to the fleet in a virtual ceremony. 

Carnival Corporation president and CEO Arnold Donald said: “2020 has proven to be a true testament to the resilience of our company.

“We took aggressive actions to implement and optimise a complete pause in our guest cruise operations across all brands globally, and developed protocols to begin our staggered resumption, first in Italy for our Costa Cruises brand, then followed by Germany for our AIDA Cruises brand.

“We are now working diligently towards resuming operations in Asia, Australia, the UK and the US over the course of 2021.

“With the aggressive actions we have taken, managing the balance sheet and reducing capacity, we are well positioned to capitalise on pent-up demand and to emerge a leaner, more efficient company, reinforcing our industry-leading position.

“The booking trends that we have consistently experienced throughout this period affirm the strong fundamental demand for our brands, which will facilitate our staggered resumption and support the long-term growth of our company.”

Chief financial officer David Bernstein added: “We ended the year with $9.5 billion in cash and have the liquidity in place to sustain ourselves throughout 2021, even in a zero-revenue environment.”