Coronavirus Outbreak: Royal Caribbean Cancels 18 Sailings

Cruise company Royal Caribbean Cruises has so far canceled a total of eighteen sailings in Southeast Asia and modified several itineraries due to travel restrictions aimed at containing the coronavirus.

Taken together, these measures have an estimated impact on the company’s financial performance for 2020 of approximately USD 0.65 per share.

“While not currently planned, if the company was to cancel all of its remaining sailings in Asia through the end of April, it would impact 2020 financial performance by an additional USD 0.55 per share,” according to Royal Caribbean.

With China and other countries moving aggressively to contain the spread of the virus, the company is also communicating regularly with the CDC, the WHO and other health authorities around the world and has implemented measures to protect passengers and crew. These include denying boarding to those that have travelled from, to or through mainland China or Hong Kong in the past 15 days and performing mandatory specialized health screenings on at-risk passengers and crew.

“It is important that every organization acts responsibly, and we have already taken aggressive steps to minimize risk through boarding restrictions and itinerary changes,” Richard D. Fain, chairman and CEO, said.

Referring to a forecast for 2020, the company said that if the travel restrictions and concerns over the outbreak continue for an extended period of time, they could materially impact Royal Caribbean’s overall financial performance.

Royal Caribbean Cruises controls and operates four brands – Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara and Silversea Cruises. The company is also a 49% shareholder in the Spanish brand Pullmantur Cruceros and, since this February, a 50% joint venture owner of the German brand TUI Cruises.

Together these brands operate a total of 61 ships with an additional seventeen on order as of December 31, 2019.

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Coronavirus Sailing Cancellations Start to Hurt Royal Caribbean’s Earnings