How full are Royal Caribbean Group’s cruise ships?

The company reported on Friday that ships in its core deployment regions in the third quarter saw a load factor of 44 percent occupancy.

Despite the low load factor, the company said that those ships were cash flow accretive excluding start-up costs.

Total revenue per passenger cruise day was up 12 percent versus record levels saw in 2019 based on strong onboard revenue performance. 

The company said in its third quarter earnings release it hopes to ramp up to load factors of 65 to 70 percent during the fourth quarter, and expects ships in the fourth quarter will be cash flow accretive even when including start-up costs.  

By the end of the year, the company expects that 50 out of 61 ships will have returned to service, representing almost 100% of core itinerary capacity and approximately 80% of worldwide capacity. 

The remaining ships are expected to return by the spring of 2022 and return to historical load factors in the third quarter 2022.