The US-based company, which also owns Celebrity Cruises and Silversea, admitted that Omicron had caused “short-term operational challenges”, which had affected bookings for the first half of 2022.
Jason Liberty, chief executive of Royal Caribbean Group, said he expected 2022 to be a “strong transitional year, as we bring the rest of our fleet back into operations”. He added there would be a return to “historic” occupancy levels and higher prices in the second half of the year.
Liberty made his comments as the group announced an operating loss of $3.9 billion for 2021, compared with a loss of $4.6 billion in 2020. Royal Caribbean Group’s net loss also reduced from $5.8 billion to $5.3 billion over the same period.
Revenue for the company was only $1.5 billion in 2021, down from $2.2 billion the previous year, with $982 million of sales coming in the final three months of last year.
“During 2021, we made significant progress toward our recovery with over 85% of our capacity returning to operations and delivering safe and memorable experiences to approximately 1.3 million guests at record guest satisfaction scores,” added Liberty.
“While the timing of Omicron was particularly unfortunate for the first half of 2022 bookings and will likely delay our return to profitability by a few months, we do not expect it to impact our overall recovery trajectory and the strong demand for cruising.”
Despite the impact of Omicron, the company is continuing to “thoughtfully” ramp up the resumption of services, with 53 of its 62 ships set to be back in service by the end of March 2022, and the rest of the fleet returning to operations before the summer season.
Liberty said that sales had already returned to pre-Omicron levels and predicted an extended wave booking period.
“We are already seeing cancellations subside and bookings improve to pre-Omicron levels, and we have adjusted our sales and marketing efforts in anticipation of a delayed and extended wave period,” he added.
The group added that it expected to continue losing money during the first six months of 2022 but would return to profit in the second half of the year.
