Carnival sets sights on equipment standardisation

Under the new strategy, vessels will have similar technical equipment but will remain distinguishable by brand in customer-facing aspects, including design, décor and interior planning. This will enable Carnival – the world’s largest cruise company, with ten global cruise brands and more than 100 ships – to better manage equipment buying and maintenance.

Lars Ljoen, managing director of Carnival Maritime – the Hamburg-based in-house ship management company responsible for Carnival’s Costa and AIDA (and soon Cunard, P&O Cruises UK and Fathom) ships – noted that part of the rationale behind the new strategy was to consolidate a group-wide spare parts list that currently runs to some five million items.

Ljoen said: “With ten brands it is much easier for us to buy in bulk so we can benefit from economies of scale. A few years ago we might have had up to 15 families of ships all with different equipment. We are now talking about building a common platform that means all the technical details – the main engines, the thruster pods, the systems – should be the same.”

Carnival has 18 newbuilding projects between now and 2022. As reported, its latest generation vessels, seven LNG-powered cruise ships of more than 180,000gt and offering more than 2,600 passenger cabins and 5,200 lower berths to accommodate a total capacity of 6,600 guests, will be built at Meyer Turku in Turku, Finland and Meyer Werft in Papenburg, Germany. Two vessels each will be delivered for Costa Cruises and AIDA in 2019 and 2021; two for Carnival Cruise Lines in 2020 and 2022; and one for P&O Cruises UK in 2020.

Last week Caterpillar Marine announced that its MaK M 46 dual-fuel engines have been selected as the prime movers for four vessels to be built in Papenburg and Turku, understood to be the first batch of vessels ordered (for Costa and AIDA) under the new ship platform.

The engine rooms for all ships will be built at Meyer subsidiary Neptun Werft in Warnemünde – the inland cruise ship builder that was recently appointed to build such components for all newbuildings in the Meyer Group.