Speaking on Carnival Corporation’s third quarter earnings call, Chairman Micky Arison stressed how proud he was of the cruise industry following recent hurricanes in the Caribbean.

“I have to say I am extremely proud of the way the industry reacted to these hurricanes,” Arison said.

“I clearly am not talking just about Carnival, I am talking about Royal Caribbean, NCL,” he continued. “Everybody was falling over themselves trying to find out how they can help, what ships they can send, what people they can evacuate, what supplies they can send, and that was the entire industry and I have to say I am really proud of the way everybody responded.” 

Arison also spoke to the differences between this year’s trio of hurricanes versus Katrina, which took out a major U.S. homeport in New Orleans.

“Well the huge difference so far is that with Katrina we lost a key homeport and losing a homeport is totally different than what we have experienced to date, obviously there is still a question about San Juan as a home port, but we only operate one Fantasy-class ship out of over 100 ships,” he noted.

“Hopefully that will be open again in a few weeks. You have to remember New Orleans was basically closed for a couple of years and we had chartered ships (to the government). 

“So, it is a totally different situation, but as Arnold said, though the hurricane season isn’t over, so we have to be a little bit cautious about what happens for the rest of the season.”