Group president and chief executive Jason Liberty hailed the developments as "two important milestones" in Royal’s recovery.

Average second-quarter (three months to 30 June) load factors ran to 82% and to nearly 90% in June, Royal revealed on Thursday (28 July).

The group expects third-quarter (three months to 30 September) load factors to average around 95% before "increasing to triple digits" by the end of the year.

“Consumers’ propensity to travel and cruise remains strong," said Liberty on Thursday (28 July).

"We continue to see a robust and accelerating demand environment for cruising and onboard spend. Cruising remains a very attractive value proposition for vacationers, and today we have an opportunity to further close the value gap to other land-based vacation offerings."

Liberty’s positivity came despite Royal posting a US $500 million Q2 net loss, one the group said "exceeded the company’s expectations" and was "driven by better revenue and cost performance".

In a trading update, Royal revealed second-quarter bookings for sailings departing in the second half of the year remained "significantly higher" than those received in Q2 2019 for the latter half of 2019.

Additionally, Royal said bookings for the second half of 2022 were being booked "at higher prices than 2019", both those using future cruise credit and those not.

"For 2023, all quarters are currently booked within historical ranges at record pricing," Royal added. "Booking volumes for 2023 have shown consistent improvement week over week, and have been accelerating over the last several weeks."