Carnival Share Discussion Threads

[broadwood] 01/3/2012 14:59

Relief its back in port I guess. Share price thinks so.

[m.t.glass] 29/2/2012 06:27

boonboon - because of the negative sentiment, Carnival and its subsidiaries have reduced their own marketing in this first quarter - the very quarter in which they take bookings for the year. That is bound to have an impact throughout the year which won't be fully recorded till nearer end of year.



Carnival Incidents Mar Recovery From Concordia Wreck

February 29, 2012, 12:32 AM EST


Feb. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Several new incidents at Carnival Corp., owner of the Costa Concordia passenger liner that ran aground off Italy in January, are clouding the cruise operator's recovery as peak booking season enters its final leg.

In the past week, 22 passengers of the Carnival Splendor were robbed during a land excursion in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and two of the company's British ships were turned away from port in Argentina after visiting the Falkland Islands in a long- running dispute between the South American country and the U.K.

Another of Miami-based Carnival's Italian liners, the Costa Allegra, suffered an on-board fire Feb. 27 and is being towed to the Seychelles, where it is expected to dock tomorrow. Today, the U.S. House begins hearings on cruise ship safety.

Carnival, the world's biggest cruise operator, has dropped 12 percent since Jan. 13, when the Concordia struck rocks and partially sank, killing at least 25 people. The incident led Carnival to reduce marketing in the January to March period during which one-third of all voyages are arranged.

The publicity is "not something you need during peak booking season," said Rachael Rothman, an analyst with Susquehanna Financial Corp. in New York. She changed her rating on Carnival shares to "neutral" from "positive" on Jan. 17 due to the potential hit to cruise bookings and prices this year. "Our issue was that you couldn't ascertain a fair value if you didn't know what demand would be."

Carnival suspended the Mexico excursion and has apologized to guests, according to a statement from Vance Gulliksen, a company spokesman.

Flashlights, Bread

The company's Genoa-based Costa Cruises has been supplying the powerless Allegra with flashlights and fresh bread, and "doing everything possible to make the situation onboard more comfortable," according to a statement from Buck Banks, an outside spokesman for Carnival.

Prior to the Costa Concordia crash, Carnival had said that its annual earnings could rise as much as 17 percent to $2.85 a share in 2012. About $71 million in costs related to the accident, as well fuel and currency adjustments, may reduce results by as much as 51 cents a share, the company said in Jan. 30 Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Carnival's namesake brand and its other lines, including Princess and P&O Cruises, operate separately, Gulliksen said in an e-mail. The Concordia shipwreck has affected those lines as well as Carnival's competitors.

Excluding Costa Cruises, fleetwide bookings declined in the mid-teens in percentage terms through Jan. 25, the most recent period for which information was available.

"The cruise industry has an outstanding historical safety record and we are fully confident in the long-term fundamentals of our business," Gulliksen said in an e-mail.

Royal Caribbean

Bookings at rival Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. fell by the low-to-mid teens afterward in percentage terms, the Miami-based company said in a Feb. 2 statement. Prior to the Concordia accident, bookings were running 5 percent ahead of 2011 levels.

"We're in uncharted territory and our traditional models simply don't cover events like this," Royal Caribbean Chief Executive Richard Fain said in a conference call that day.

Carnival added 0.2 percent to $30.01 yesterday in New York and has declined 8.1 percent this year. Royal Caribbean was little changed at $28.06 and has gained 13 percent this year.

The Costa Concordia remains half submerged and on its side. Divers searching the wreckage found eight more bodies on Feb. 22, according to the Italian Civil Protection Agency. Seven people are still missing, the agency said.

Italian Claims

A total of nine employees of Costa Cruises are under probe in connection with the Concordia crash. The line is "absolutely certain" that its staff acted correctly, it said in an e-mailed statement on Feb. 22.

Italian consumer associations have started advising clients on damage claims. Codacons, an Italian consumer group that filed a suit against Carnival in Miami with New York law firm Proner and Proner on Jan. 27 for the Concordia shipwreck, said on its website yesterday that damages to passengers of the Costa Allegra have to be "adequately paid back."

Italy is sending experts from the Coast Guard and the Transport Ministry to the Seychelles to probe the Costa Allegra accident along with local authorities and assist passengers, Ansa, an Italian news agency reported.

--With assistance from Chiara Vasarri in Milan. Editors: Anthony Palazzo, Rob Golum

To contact the reporters on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at [e-mail]; Marco Bertacche in Milan at [e-mail]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at [e-mail]

[miata] 27/2/2012 15:39

In passenger capacity terms, Costa is only 15% of Carnival.

[boonboon] 27/2/2012 15:24

still bad publicity, I wonder how many people will now not book with Costa cruises and what impact does this have on the bottom line?

[cambium] 27/2/2012 15:03

The coast guard said all passengers and crew on the Costa Allegra were "in good health and were informed promptly of the situation."

The fire broke out near the ship's generators and has now been put out.

"The Costa Allegra's engines are out but its communications are working," it said.

[cambium] 27/2/2012 15:01

BREAKING NEWS: Costa cruise ship adrift off Seychelles following fire, says Italian coastguard


Read more:

[miata] 21/2/2012 14:39

Still its good to know that the Americans (Carnival) have protected themselves against the American legal system.

XD tomorrow 25 cents.

[old giggleswickian] 21/2/2012 14:20

MIATA,
Shareholders can draw huge confidence from the inherent fairness of the American judicial system. Give it a few weeks and the American shareholders will sue the European shareholders for not telling them that the ship was going to sink.

Ian.

[tadska] 16/2/2012 17:50

kibes
How do you think, why this happened?

[kibes] 16/2/2012 08:17

Russian girl falls deeply for rich high profile westerner who is already married - where have I heard that before?

[miata] 06/2/2012 14:31

The Costa Concordia will be re-floated whole and hauled away the Genoa-based cruise line has confirmed, the operation is likely to be completed in the first quarter of 2012.

[miata] 02/2/2012 17:20

Domnica Cemortan, 25, was interviewed for nearly six hours on Wednesday by prosecutors in a police station in Grosseto, Tuscany, amid reports that divers had found some of her belongings in Capt Francesco Schettino's cabin.
According to Italian press reports, based on interviews with prosecutors, she said she had fallen deeply for the skipper – despite him having a wife and a teenage daughter.

Ms Cemortan was on the week-long cruise as a guest, it has been reported that she did not have her own cabin. La Repubblica newspaper offered an explanation for the unusual arrangement when it claimed that some of the former dancer's belongings were found in Capt Schettino's cabin, suggesting that they were sharing.

[ohojim] 01/2/2012 14:10

Bigger than the titanic it would seem.

[miata] 01/2/2012 13:58

Costa Concordia: Length 247.70m, Gross Tonnage 114,147.

Comparison with two modern VLCCs
Atlantic Pioneer: Length 324.00m, Gross Tonnage 159,943.
Kasagisan: Length 324.00m, Gross Tonnage 160,216.

[mj19] 01/2/2012 13:43

Getting it towed

Once upright, towing the ship using tugboats is very straightforward, and means it could be taken away for full repairs.

The Costa Concordia might be large for cruise ships, but not compared to some oil tankers and bulk carriers.

[mj19] 01/2/2012 13:42

The hole in the hull on the port side is 48.8m (160ft) wide

"It's possible, with small areas of damage, to prefabricate a [steel] patch and put it into place," says Dawn Gorman, editor of the magazine, International Tug & OSV.

"But whether that's possible with damage this size, we don't know."

If it could be patched up, the next step would be to pump the water out and stabilise it, a very lengthy process, says Ms Gorman.

"But there's no point pumping the water out unless the damage has been patched up, and that's a big hole.
"It may be the ship isn't salvageable and it isn't possible to right it, patch it up and send it on its way, because fundamental damage has been done."

Last month the container ship Rena broke in two near New Zealand, after constant battering by the ocean, three months after it ran aground.

That's unlikely to happen to the Costa Concordia, says Mr Lacey.

"Rena was in a very exposed position so she got smashed up, but you won't get metal fatigue in this case. There isn't a huge fetch [the length of sea over which a wind blows] so she won't start rusting any time soon."

[mj19] 01/2/2012 13:40

Although there is no evidence that any of the ship's 2,000 tonnes of diesel oil has yet leaked, there are fears that if it slips on the rocks, one of the 17 tanks could breach and cause a spill.

The island's mayor has warned of an "ecological time-bomb", and anti-spill booms encircle the ship to minimise the threat of an environmental disaster.

A Dutch company specialising in salvage operations, Smit, has been asked to remove the fuel.

Its operations manager Kees van Essen said the company was confident the fuel could be safely extracted through a system of pumps and valves which vacuum the oil out to waiting tanks.

The process, involving engineers and divers, would take two to four weeks.


A statement by the parent company, Costa Crociere, said the ship could be lifted with "balls of air" and once floating, towed away by tugs.

The process is called parbuckling, an old-fashioned way to get ships upright, says Mr Lacey. This involves barges with huge winches slowly heaving the ship into position, bit by bit.

"You need a huge turning movement - the power you need to apply to pull the thing into the vertical position. It's simple physics.

"There was a similar operation on the [capsized ferry] Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987 but that ship was a quarter of the size."

Air bags could be placed under the starboard side by divers and then inflated to help push it upright, he adds, but those alone would not have sufficient force.

[mj19] 01/2/2012 13:38

Costa Concordia: group of 6 cruise ship passengers seek £292 million compensation
A group of six passengers from the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship is seeking $460 million (£292 million) in damages and compensation from the luxury liner's owners after it ran aground off Italy's coast.

[mj19] 30/1/2012 16:01

The operation to recover the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia could take up to 10 months, a top Italian rescue official has said.

The 114,500-tonne ship ran aground on rocks off the Italian island of Giglio on 13 January, with more than 4,200 people on board. The number of people known to have died in the disaster stands at 17, with another 15 still unaccounted for.

Bad weather has already delayed searches and fuel pumping operations, as Keith Doyle reports.

[miata] 28/1/2012 10:24

Crew member sues seeking a class-action status to represent all victims of the accident:

Gary Lobaton vs Carnival Corp, Case No. 1:12-cv-00598, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

[mj19] 27/1/2012 15:34

24 January 2012 Last updated at 14:10 Help

The operation to pump thousands of tons of fuel oil from the stricken ship, the Costa Concordia, is to go ahead at the weekend.

A large barge named the Meloria has moored alongside the ship to begin the delicate operation.

Bart Huizing, head of operations at Smit salvage, said: "We don't see a big risk in an oil spill but if weather deteriorates nobody can tell what the vessel will do."