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After that he's hoping to have a bit more "me time" which he said he plans to fill with commitments to several external boards throwing out several names including The National WWII Museum and Bank of America, among others. Donald wanted to bring the company's various brands together to behave like a federation – to share practices and strengthen the company as a whole. Carnival Corp. is the parent company of flagship Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Seabourn, P&O Cruises, Costa Cruises, AIDA Cruises and Cunard. Donald told USA TODAY the decision came as part of an ongoing planning and leadership development process at the company. "And so that real-time collaboration, communication, I think, has been enhanced dramatically."
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"Arnold makes the work fun, and he sets the bar high, but he sets the bar high for himself, and then he helps you achieve it," said Roger Frizzell, Carnival Corp.'s senior vice president and chief communications officer. The good news for cruising fans who love new ships is that several of Carnival Corporation's biggest brands including Carnival and Princess still have new ships on the way — vessels that were ordered before the pandemic began. But the pipeline of new ships on order for Carnival Corporation brands is quickly running dry. The company has just seven ships on order across its nine brands, all but two of which will arrive by the end of next year.
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Weinstein suggests that new ships aren't as key to the health of the cruise industry as some might think. The order drought, moreover, comes on top of the early retirement of 23 vessels across Carnival Corporation's nine brands during the pandemic as the company slashed costs to survive. Even after several new ship additions in the past two years (ships that already were in the pipeline), it's down to just 92 vessels. Perhaps more troubling, Carnival Corporation is now saddled with a substantial pile of debt — $35.1 billion as of the end of May — that it mostly issued in the past three years to raise money to stay in business. The interest on the debt alone is costing the company more than $120 million a month. It's a massive portfolio that makes Carnival Corporation not only the world's biggest cruise company — the company accounts for nearly half of all cruise vacations taken worldwide — but also one of the world's biggest leisure travel companies.
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During this time, he also oversaw Carnival UK, the operating company for P&O Cruises (UK) and Cunard, which he previously managed directly for three years as president. Last month, Carnival forecast a loss for a third straight year, as it grapples with soaring fuel costs. The company has said it expects the full fleets of its nine major cruise line brands to start sailing again by the end of this year. Echoing what other top cruise executives have told TPG in recent weeks, Donald suggested the timetable for a cruising comeback also depends a lot on how society's view of the risks of gathering in groups changes over the coming months. Carnival’s long time chief executive Arnold Donald will step down this summer, having successfully steered the company through much of the pandemic’s devastation.
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Prior to his role with Carnival UK, Weinstein was treasurer for Carnival Corporation & plc for 10 years from 2007 to 2017, overseeing the treasury, tax, insurance and financial planning & analysis functions over this time period. From 2002 to 2007, Weinstein served as an attorney in the corporate legal department. Taking over on July 3 will be Arnold W. Donald, a 12-year Carnival Corp. board member and former chemical industry executive who has no management experience in the cruise business. When you choose to apply (and are approved) for a new credit card through our site, we may receive compensation from our partners, and this may impact how or where these products appear.
Donald also assured cruisers that the company has enough cash on hand to survive for many months without a resumption of cruising. "When we start sailing again, more than likely because there is going to be fewer ships out, and people are ... anxious to cruise, there is going to be more demand than supply initially." "Even at our peak (before coronavirus), we were growing very well, but we were still tiny," he said, noting that the growth of the cruise industry as a whole was constrained by capacity limits. "Every destination is not going to (reopen) at the same time, and so at the beginning there will be fewer ships by a lot than there were when we shutdown," he said. "It's going to take us some time to get back to the level of cruising where we were before." Donald suggested the company might implement a social distancing requirement on ships, but it also might not.
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While the pandemic, which shuttered the industry for more than a year, has been an unprecedented challenge, Donald thinks that some good has come out of it. "For businesses to thrive over time, they have to innovate either in their processes or their products and services," Donald said. Listening to -- and responding to -- his employees has been part of his makeup from the beginning.
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In contrast, Royal Caribbean shares are up almost 3% on the year and down only roughly 9% over the past 12 months.
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Travel during the financial crisis of 2008, raising awareness about the importance of business travel and solidifying support in Washington. Her leadership led to a number of initiatives, including the first-ever public/private partnership to promote international travel to the U.S. creating what is known today as Brand USA. Throughout her career, Duffy has been a strong supporter of women’s leadership in the travel industry, leading initiatives that delivered research and programs to help women advance their careers. Duffy continues to usher Carnival through rapid growth, with the acquisition of five new ships in a period of two years. The cruise line’s fleet expansion continues with two more of its largest and most innovative Excel-class ships in 2027 and 2028. She’s also currently focused on the development of the cruise line’s new exclusive destination, Celebration Key, which opens in July 2025.
Weinstein is quick to point out that the "happiness" that he envisions each of the brands providing their customers will come in different forms. It's a transition that is unlikely to bring major changes to the way the company operates — at least at first. Weinstein tells TPG that he is "on a bit of an exploration path" of understanding the company's various divisions and how they're delivering on the promise of happiness that he talks about — each in their own way. The BLACK ENTERPRISE Black Men Excel Summit is the nation’s No. 1 conference focused on celebrating and refining Black men with the tools necessary to advance their professional development from entry-level management to C-suite executive. Josh Weinstein has assumed the role of President and CEO of Carnival Corporation & plc.
He also helped reshape the company’s fleet profile with newer, more efficient and more environmentally advanced ships. Under construction at a shipyard in Finland, Mardi Gras will be one of the biggest cruise ships ever built and famously will have a roller coaster on its top deck — a cruise industry first. While a single German river ship restarted cruises in Germany a few days ago, and a few more small ships may resume cruising in isolated pockets around the world in the coming weeks, most cruise lines have canceled all sailings through at least the end of July. Some lines have gone much further, canceling trips into late September or even October or November. For starters, he believes a long-held industry myth -- that cruise ships are "floating petri dishes" -- could well be dispelled thanks to the way the industry took on its return to sailing.
Donald, who will take on the role of vice chair at Carnival Corp., sat down with Cruise Critic for an exclusive interview about his time with Carnival, what's next for him and what we should expect for the future of the industry. Carnival Panorama, another sister to Carnival Vista, entered service as the cruise line's flagship on December 11, 2019. She became the first new ship to homeport on the West Coast since Paradise (now Carnival Paradise) in 1998. "Our ability to, over time, rebuild the balance sheet, get back to that fortress [balance sheet], that's the path that we want to get on," he says. "I think we can do that in a way that still allows us to grow and to order more ships over time. I don't look at them as mutually exclusive. But we absolutely have a priority that we're going to use our cash to ... reduce financial leverage." Weinstein suggests it's a challenge to build a day-to-day business model that factors in the possibility of another pandemic that would have the worldwide effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, or a similar phenomenon that would shut down cruising for months on end.
As the economy started to rebound in 2021, the outlook for cruising remained bleak. But Donald, one of the few Black CEOs on Wall Street, remained defiantly optimistic about the industry. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fought hard to keep its no sail order in place, Donald played a leading role in driving discussions with lawmakers, industry leaders and the White House in trying to change the course of that order. In the coming weeks, shareholders will want to hear from Weinstein, who has been at Carnival for 20 years, about his game plan for the cruise line and how it may differ from Donald's approach. Carnival shares are down nearly 13% in 2022, slightly more than the 11.5% decline for the S&P 500 during the same year-to-date period, and they are off more than 35% over the past 12 months.
Donald talked with TPG's Kelly via Zoom for the first episode of The Future of Travel with Brian Kelly, a new webinar series that will feature travel industry thought leaders. "I wish I could give you a date (for a resumption of cruising), but we can't, because it's a regulatory matter," Carnival Corporation CEO Arnold Donald told The Points Guy on Monday during an exclusive, hourlong interview that was streamed live on the internet. When he took the helm in 2013, Carnival Corp. was reeling from the fallout of a fire that left the Carnival Triumph floating off Mexico without power for days, as well as the 2012 sinking of the Costa Concordia. Travel advisors had become disenchanted with Carnival, which had a less-than-stellar reputation with the trade.
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