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A Royal Caribbean cruise ship docked at a pier in the port of Miami.
Daniel Slim / AFP via Getty Images
Royal Caribbean Group,
which ended most of its cruises last year because of the pandemic, plans to resume some trips to the Bahamas in June with adult passengers and crew vaccinated against Covid, the company announced.
Royal Caribbean (ticker: RCL) will use Nassau in the Bahamas as its home port for the seven-night voyages, which are scheduled to take place from June to August.
It would be the first trip in the important Caribbean market for the Miami-based company in more than a year. Most cruise lines were closed for about a year because of the pandemic, generating billions of dollars in losses and huge capital increases to support their balance sheets.
Royal Caribbean made some trips from Singapore and, through a joint venture, from Europe.
Royal Caribbean and its two main peers in the USA –
Carnival
(CCL) and
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings
(NCLH) – are awaiting further guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on when they left US ports again.
The trips to Nassau, however, offer some possible clues as to what navigation will look like when cruises are resumed more broadly.
The new itineraries “will be available to adult guests who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and under 18 with negative test results,” according to a Royal Caribbean statement issued on Friday, adding that crews will also be vaccinated .
In the statement, Michael Bayley, President and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, said: “We believe that starting with cruises for vaccinated adult passengers and crew is the right choice. As we move forward, we expect that this requirement and other measures will inevitably evolve over time. “
Trips must include stops at Perfect Day in CocoCay, a private destination on an island in the Bahamas that Royal Caribbean has developed; Grand Bahama Island and Cozumel, Mexico.
Royal Caribbean’s shares have soared 21% in the year to date, as investors are increasingly confident of a broader reopening of the economy. Lately, there has been more optimism among Wall Street analysts about the outlook for the sector.
Still, Royal and its competitors spend hundreds of millions of money every month, while their fleets remain idle.
The company had an adjusted loss of $ 18.31 per share in 2020, compared to a profit of $ 9.54 the previous year.
Write to Lawrence C. Strauss at [email protected]