“LNG-powered ships? What’s needed is infrastructure” / INTERVIEW

Genoa - “I think we’re facing two major obstacles: the inability to travel, and the fear of travelling. If we manage to overcome these two obstacles, and maintain a reasonably peaceful world in which to work, I don’t expect we’ll have any problems.” Arnold Donald, CEO and president of Carnival since 2013, and the man who led the world’s largest cruise company (120,000 employees) out of the Giglio-disaster debacle, is unperturbed by the protectionist tide of the Trump administration; And, fittingly, he often employs words such as “light” and “bright future”.

Even for Genoa, in the wake of the relocation of employees to Hamburg?

“I’ll reiterate Thamm’s words: rationalization was what happened in Hamburg, which is producing results, but in Genoa, and in Italy, we are resuming hiring, and, so, yes, I see a bright future here too.”

Currently, you have two LNG-powered ships on order. Do you have plans for more vessels of this kind?

“Given that the cruise industry contributes about one-tenth of total emissions from maritime transport, any choice of fuel requires an essential component: the infrastructure. Ships are never still, they move from one port to another, so there’s the need for fuel to be available wherever they go.” [Currently, at the EU level, five northern ports are supplied through tanker trucks, while, for the Mediterranean, the ports of Palma and Barcelona should soon start offering that option, ed.].

Many shipowners are themselves investing in infrastructure. Is that something that interests you?

“Look, our partner in this industry has always been Shell: they’re better placed than us to judge how and where to target investment.”

You are Fincantieri’s largest customer. What do you think of the acquisition of STX France?

“We’ll continue to put our trust in Fincantieri, nothing really changes for us. But I can also see their need to acquire new facilities, as theirs are fully occupied for the next few years.”

Recently China’s largest tour operator expressed interest in getting back into the cruise business. Perhaps a potential partner for your firm?

“In China we’ve been partnering with Fincantieri and shipbuilder CSSC to build the first Chinese cruise ship by 2023. It’s up to CSSC to decide on a possible agreement with the HNA group.”

Meanwhile, the industry has been waiting for years for the Asian market to boom.

“It’s a slow-growing market, but one with enormous potential. We’ve had a presence in the region for 10 years, our goal is to move from the current three million passenger-mark to 4.5 million in 2021. China still represents an opportunity, but to-date the total number of cruise passengers from that region numbers 800,000.”

In the race to build ever-larger ships your firm has somewhat lagged behind the competition.

“Of course the trend is to build larger and larger, but size is by no means the only criterion for defining our industry. Yesterday I spent the night in Portofino sleeping on one of our ships that carries 600 passengers...”