Someone is still pushing the starting line for the cruise line industry, and it’s getting old. Norwegian Cruise Line (NASDAQ: NCLH) He became the last to shudder in this seemingly endless game of sea chicken, announcing on Wednesday that he will cancel all upcoming outings until the end of October.
Great rivals Carnival (NYSE: CCL) (NYSE: CUK) and Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL) They are currently on hiatus until the end of September, coinciding with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest browsing ban order. COVID-19 is serious business, and while all three stocks tend to increase every time there is positive news about the vaccine, the short-term outlook remains slim.
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Treacherous Waters
It’s easy to see why Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line continue to cancel upcoming trips every few weeks instead of canceling all of 2020 in one motion. You don’t want to cancel more booked trips than you have to, especially since about half of those passengers are asking for your money back. The problem here is that the other half of the people browsing the airport, those who opt for improved future credit, may not be happy either.
Norwegian Cruise Line, for example, offers customers on canceled trips 125% of what they have already paid on future cruise credits. It’s a great deal on paper, but now we are starting to meet people on major cruise lines who have now had more than one booked trip. Eventually burned passengers will tire of opting for future reservation credits.
In fairness, the timeline for when cruise lines return to business doesn’t exactly depend on them. Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line are working to establish safety protocols so that they can start operating when the highest powers give the green light, but the industry itself and the appetite of consumers for sea travel may not be the same. when customers who pay Trekking to ports again. Norwegian Cruise Line won’t sail again until after Halloween, and that may seem like more of a trick than a gift.
It is not just safety measures that can lessen the experience until we get a viable vaccine on the market. We are already knee deep in a recession that may be worse for when ships return to sea with passengers. Between the tightening of money and the negative shocks the industry has suffered in recent months, it may not matter if the ships return to the open sea later this year or in 2021.
