Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain provided a new video update where he talked about the current state of affairs related to the global health crisis, as well as addressing cruises resuming.

Mr. Fain has produced a number of video updates during the cruise industry shutdown that are produced for travel agents, but they provide insight for the public.

Towards the end of this new video update, he tackled the question he is most commonly asked: "when cruising will resume in strength?".

His answer is no one yet knows for certain.

"My answer is consistently, I don't know. But more recently, my answer has been, I don't know, but that's the good direction to be going in."

Mr. Fain sees promise in the fact Quantum of the Seas has been able to restart operations successfully in Singapore for a few months, and other cruise lines have been sailing in Europe.

"It's going to take a while and we just need to be patient."

"But it is happening and these early cruises are going to give us information that will help inform how we can operate safely and that's going to give us all confidence in an earlier and safer restart."

Mr. Fain sees the vaccine and new health protocols as a key component to moving towards a restart, and in the short term, protecting crew members who are still working onboard their cruise ships.

"The vaccines and other steps we are taking are also important to protect the crew. In the beginning, it was really very difficult to ensure that the crew members were virus free. But the new vaccines, testing and other steps are giving us the opportunity to protect them as never before."

Despite the obstacles the cruise industry faces, as well as an extremely long shutdown, Mr. Fain believes there is tremendous demand for cruises.

"People clearly have pent up demand and we can't wait to satisfy it."

"Every day we see signs that people want to get out and away. That pressure will help us once we can reopen and restart."

Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain shared a new video with travel partners that answers the question of how can he be hopeful for the near-term future when we are inundated with terrible news every day.

"We are approaching the point where we can run out the clock on this terrible disease."

Mr. Fain has been releasing video updates every few weeks that share his thoughts on what is happening currently with the global health crisis, as well as providing hints at cruises being able to restart.

This week's video focuses on projections of estimated infections, and how over the course of the spring and early summer, a combination of vaccine rollout and other rule changes could bring the daily count down.

Mr. Fain started out the video by saying he believes, "2021 will end up in a very good year for us all."

The projections come from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which is an independent global health research center at the University of Washington.

Their stats indicate infections and fatalities will peak at the end of January, and then rapidly fall from there.

IMHE's projections are based on the fact 22% of the U.S. population has already had the virus, along with the growing number of vaccinated people, as well as people wearing face masks.

"They project that by the end of April, we can expect levels 20 times lower than today's peak and the lowest they've been since early last year."

Mr. Fain conceded virus mutations could affect the projections, along with possibility increased vaccine rollout could make it better.

The current events reminded Mr. Fain of hurricanes in Florida, with the anticipation, preparation and constantly changing updates associated with a storm.

"The TV rightly shows the winds howling in the trees, bending during the storm, and it is horrific. But we also look at the projections to see where the storm will be a little later on. It takes some pretty sophisticated modeling and a lot of experience, but we can get a good indication of the path of the storm." 

 "Not perfect, but pretty good. And I think the covid tempest is similar. We're in the midst of the worst part of the storm and it is horrific. "

 "But we need to consider the likely direction over the next few months, and that's why I'm so positive."

Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain has a new outlook on cruises restarting, and it is a significant departure from his outlook in the past.

Mr. Fain shared a video update with travel partners on Monday that acclaimed the approval and imminent distribution of new vaccines that he believes will be the primary way to get cruise ships sailing again.

His tone was still upbeat, but he now thinks the key to cruises resuming will be the arrival of a vaccine, and not only new health protocols.

"Previously, we expected cruising to resume based on creating a virtual bubble of safety on a ship, even if the rest of the country was experiencing significant spread," he admitted to viewers.

"Today we envision that the key, but not the exclusive factor, will be the vaccines rather than purely the protocols."

The nearly year-long cessation of operations has resulted in an enormous amount of waiting, and much more than anyone predicted, "We've waited a long time for this," Mr. Fain admitted. "We never imagined that it would take this long and we never imagined that we could survive with such a lengthy shutdown."

However, Mr. Fain believes cruises will be able to come back faster than previously thought due to the impact vaccines will have.

"Although the first cruises will be later than we expected, the resumption of cruising will ramp up faster and be more robust."

Mr. Fain was quick to point out that the new health protocols are still important, and touted the role they played in the recent false positive scare on Quantum of the Seas.

It is the first time Royal Caribbean has openly spoke about what happened last week, and it appears the situation that played out on Quantum of the Seas proved the importance of new protocols.

"The protocols and collaboration with the Singaporean authorities resulted in swift containment of any potential covid threat, some guest inconvenience, and a recognition that working together our cruises can operate and deliver great experiences."

The experience on Quantum of the Seas allowed Royal Caribbean to run through a real-world situation that luckily had no repercussions.

"The false positive gave us a real world chance to test our procedures, and they performed well."

"Such experiences really allow us to test our processes and prepare better for a full operation."

Mr. Fain also believes that once the public health threat is reduced because of the arrival of a vaccine, demand for travel will surge.

Many travel experts believe there is a lot of pent up demand by the public to get back to the fun things that so many people gave up on in 2020.

Mr. Fain said "demand will grow quickly" once cases begin to fall and cruises begin to open back up.

"People are tired and frustrated, and they want to get away from this Groundhog Day experience. The demand for new experiences will blossom."

Royal Caribbean Group Chairman Richard Fain published a new video update that talks about the positive outlook a new COVID-19 vaccine will have on the world.

Throughout Royal Caribbean's shutdown, Richard Fain has shared periodic video updates that provide insight into his views of the current situation facing the cruise line.

Mr. Fain believes the combination of promising vaccines in scope, broader and faster testing, and treatment options available, means they now have the end of this pandemic in sight, as well as Royal Caribbean's return to service.

While he spends the majority of the time in the video highlighting the amazing advances science has made in combating the virus, the outlook on when exactly cruises might resume remains unclear.

"We're definitely not at the end. However, I believe that looking ahead, the range of likely outcomes is narrowing and the timeline is becoming clearer."

In his own words, Mr. Fain answered the question of when cruises will restart with a simple, "we still don't know".

"We are getting a clearer picture. Our hopes for a very early start up have been dashed, but so, too, is speculation that this current state of affairs will last until the end of the range."

Royal Caribbean remains committed to making cruise ships as safe as possible, and Mr. Fain reiterated the promise that going on a cruise ship would be safer than being at home.

"I've said repeatedly that our goal is to make cruising as safe, or safer, from the virus than on Main Street, USA. And we're making the effort now to ensure that they comes with appropriate speed and confidence."

Mr. Fain admitted that the process of returning to service has taken longer than he had hoped, but the outlook is getting better.

"It's taken longer to get here than we had hoped, but it's clear and clearer that we are approaching that date."

Mr. Fain's words come the same day Royal Caribbean announced it would cancel nearly all of its cruises through the end of February 2021, and even longer cancellations in Australia.

He also thinks new advances in a vaccine will allow Royal Caribbean to ramp up operations faster than they had previously thought, and that means more cruise ships back in service sooner.

Royal Caribbean Chairman and CEO Richard Fain shared a new video update that talked about the progress being made on new vaccines, as well as update on what Royal Caribbean is doing to get approval to offer cruises again.

Mr. Fain kicked off the video by highlighting the "transformational" progress being made on the vaccine front, with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines showing incredible results in their third phase of testing.

In addition to the vaccine progress, Mr. Fain mentioned Eli Lilly's antibody treatment and Regeneron as two very promising treatments that have provided a "quantum leap in our ability to deal with the disease".

"It's the extraordinary improvement in drugs and medical knowledge that's making COVID-19 progressively less dangerous every single day."

"And the real measure for the threat of this disease is the number of hospitalizations and deaths it causes. Getting that under control will be an enormous milestone for all of us."

Working with the CDC

Mr. Fain also talked about the Conditional Sail Order, which provides a framework for cruises to be able to resume if certain steps and milestones are met.

He said Royal Caribbean is up to the task of working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to get cruises back on the water again.

"We are determined to work with the CDC to implement, adjust and clarify all those requirements so that we can meet the goal of safe and healthy sailing."

Moreover, Mr. Fain said it will not be a quick process, but it is achievable.

"It won't be easy and it won't be quick, but it will be thorough and it will be effective."

In preparation for these hurdles set up by the CDC, Royal Caribbean is doing what it can to be "masters of our own destiny".

"We have established rigorous protocols designed to make cruise ships safer than comparable places on land. We're training our people and we're preparing our ships to face all of these challenges head on."

Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain spoke in a recorded video to travel advisors on when cruises might restart following the CDC lifting the no sail order.

After imploring everyone watching the video to vote on election day in the United States, Mr. Fain had a lot of exuberance for the outlook on cruising, following seven months of being shutdown.

"This is really a big deal and we are really very excited about what the future holds for us."

While the CDC's decision to provide a framework for cruises to restart is a big step, it is not the end of the cruise shutdown saga.

"It's not the end of the journey, but it is an important milestone on that journey and it provides a clear pathway for our resumption of service."

"Our industry has suffered over the long seven months, but now we finally have a pathway forward."

Mr. Fain believes the 74 recommendations of the Healthy Sail Panel were instrumental in getting the CDC to understand that the cruise lines had a clear path to restart cruising safely, without putting the public at risk.

"The plan's main goal was to define a way to make a cruise ship a healthier environment with less risk of disease than Main Street USA."

It will take time to get cruises back

Mr. Fain was quick to point out that getting cruise ships operational again will not happen overnight.

The framework established by the CDC will require a lot of work for passengers to be able to get back onboard.

"It will take some time to go from where we are to our first commercial sailings," Mr. Fain said in his video. "I can't wait, but it will take some time because the order calls for a lot of details that will need to be specified, clarified or adjusted over the coming period."

Mr. Fain also alluded to the fact that cruise lines have to undertake a variety of steps to come close to restarting their businesses, whereas on land, businesses there had no such oversight.

"We have to train our crew in the new procedures and we have to get them safely back to our ships. This includes having every one of them take multiple covid tests before they leave home and after they arrive to their home port and then engaging in a quarantine period after they've done all the testing."

"We have to reposition our ships, update their certifications, provision them, make physical modifications to support the physical distancing and upgrade the medical care on board. "

"And most significantly, we are committed to and the framework calls for a series of trials, sailings where we will road test all of our new protocols using employees and other volunteers to stand in for guests."

While this process will be anything but quick, Mr. Fain recognizes that the public, travel agents, and the cruise lines are all eager to see ships sail again.

"We are significantly closer to resuming service than at any point since March, and we are so much better prepared for that moment than we have ever been."

New case spikes around the world

The CDC's announcement to provide a way for cruises to restart coincided with a significant rise of new cases in the United States, and around the world.

Mr. Fain commented that the while this second wave is not good news, he sees positive signs that this may be the "virus's last big surge".

Mr. Fain even went as far as to make a prediction, which is something he noted he has resisted doing in the past, "I'm feeling good enough about the future to make an exception here, about the period that will follow this surge."

He believes there are four reasons for optimism: masks, testing, therapies and vaccines.

"While each of those factors will help contain the spread next year, it's a cumulative combination of all of these taken together that I hope will constrain the risk of the virus causing another comparable surge after we get through this current one." 

Royal Caribbean Chairman and CEO Richard Fain published a new video update on his outlook on testing, as well as the impact the new health recommendations will have on cruises restarting.

Following the submission of the Healthy Sail Panel's 74 health recommendations the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC), Mr. Fain said the recommendations will serve to protect guests and crew onboard in a bubble type environment.

"The panel made seventy four specific recommendations towards accomplishing these two goals. By implementing the panel's recommendations, we intend to make our ships and environment a bubble, if you will, that actually presents less risk of transmission than in their home communities on land to get there."

"To get there, the panel proposed a thorough and layered approach of several different operating protocols. Wasn't just one."

One of the most important aspects of the recommendations is 100% testing of guests and crew.

"Most importantly, they recommended that we institute one hundred percent testing of everyone who enters the ship's guest and crew."

Mr. Fain was proud of the fact they are going to implement 100% testing, and noted the closest any other industry has reached with testing was the NBA's bubble concept.

Cruises can be done safely

Based on the results so far in limited cruises in Europe, Mr. Fain is bullish on the idea cruises can be offered safely.

"The cruises have been enjoyable, and more importantly, they continue to be safe."

"Our panel came away convinced that it could be done. Our leadership team came away, convinced that it could be done. And as we have met with government officials, our confidence has grown as well."

Cruises vs. CDC

Perhaps no other government agency has become so critical a focal point for cruise lines than the CDC, and Mr. Fain did speak to them during the video.

"The CDC, and other regulators, have been working on this for a long time. We're grateful for the CDC's focus on health and for the time they and their observers have spent on this important topic with the Healthy Sail Panel."

Furthermore, he touched on the meeting with White House officials on Friday that was postponed.

"Many of you know that we were scheduled to meet with the CDC and the COVID-19 task force on Friday on this very subject. Unfortunately, the unexpected announcement of the President and various White House officials testing positive caused that particular meeting to be postponed."

"But the lines of communication remain open and we expect the dialogue to continue productively."

Restarting plans

Mr. Fain also reiterated the basic plans for getting cruises back up. He did not provide a timeline, only saying they are ready to do so and hope it happens soon.

"Soon, we hope to have the opportunity to put our plans to the test. It's not going to happen overnight. It is going to take time for this process to work through."

"And we propose to start slowly by training our crew and embarking on a series of non-revenue test sailings, where we can rehearse and we can validate the new protocols."

The results will be evaluated by independent observers before a few short sailings begin again.

"There'll be short cruises at first with limited destinations and controlled shore excursions."

"But as we learn and as the science continues to improve, we will expand."

The bottom line for Mr. Fain is Royal Caribbean Group believes in getting it right and taking their time to address the issues, rather than rushing back.

"We've told you from the start that we understand the importance of getting this right. We've told you that we won't rush, we won't cut corners. And we are still committed to making sure that we do it right. "

Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain spoke with travel advisors on Wednesday about the body of work and impact of the Healthy Sail Panel's initial recommendations.

Mr. Fain touched on a variety of topics related to the new protocols, the work of the Panel, and of course the return of cruising.

New protocols will allow cruises to come back sooner

Not only have the Healthy Sail Panel recommendations been well-received among cruise fans and industry leaders, but Richard Fain believes they have the basis to even get cruises back up and going even sooner than expected.

The question Mr. Fain asked the Panel after the protocols were submitted was could Royal Caribbean come back to a safe and healthy environment? 

"And their answer was, if you adopt all these protocols, you can."

"And obviously we are going to, and we believe that will greatly accelerate the time, so we're looking forward to coming back sooner."

"If they don't want to wear a mask, then they shouldn't come on the cruise"

There has been a lot of opinions if people are willing to go on a cruise and be required to wear a mask, and Mr. Fain touched on the fact that masks will be required at least in the beginning.

"It is one of the single most effective things you can do to reduce the transmission of this disease. And at least when we start, it will be an important part of the process."

"There are people who object to doing so and won't do so, but we will make sure they understand that that is, at least in the beginning, a part of the experience. And if they don't want to wear a mask, then they shouldn't come on the cruise."

"At least in the beginning, it will be an important part of our protocols on board. And I think a lot of people understand the need to protect against transmission on board."

Both Mr. Fain and Vicki Freed, Royal Caribbean's Senior Vice President, Sales, Trade Support and Service, reiterated that masks will not be required to be worn everywhere, including in staterooms or while dining or on open decks where permissible.

Big focus on preventing a ship quarantined

There are a lot of cruise fans concerned regardless of any rules or regulations, that they could be stuck on a ship for an extended period of time due to a positive case onboard, similar to what happened to some ships in Asia before cruising shut down.

Mr. Fain noted a major focus of the Panel was on response, contingency planning, and execution.

"I don't think that many people are so much afraid of getting infection, but they don't want to be on a ship where somebody else gets infection and then they get quarantined or isolated."

"A really important part and a really big focus of the panel's effort was on how to respond if we do have a case that gets on board."

Even Mr. Fain acknowledged that statistically, it is likely a case will pop up onboard eventually, but the system will be designed the catch it early and avoid it becoming a major issue.

"We respond properly. We have a extensive contingency plan so that we don't have to go through one of these processes of quarantining huge numbers of people. We take care of the the the small number that we catch early and everybody else can go about their business."

Royal Caribbean still has to turn protocols into rules

The Panel's work are recommendations, and Mr. Fain did note that Royal Caribbean still has to take the recommendations and turn them into cruise line policy.

"I should this explain these are recommendations from the panel. We actually then take these recommendations and put them into our detailed protocol."

"We'll be doing our own rules and we'll be working those through with the CDC and other regulatory bodies, but the panel's report is really our North Star on this."

"Maybe in our protocols, we put this in more operationally oriented language, but I think the vast bulk of the substance is clear from the report."

"Our protocols will be based on the report, but not a verbatim transcript. And we will we will be issuing those relatively soon."

Testing is single most important step

Mr. Fain was adamant of the importance that testing will play to keep everyone safe onboard.

"We do think that we have procedures that we could put in place that gets you the tests, have the test results reported directly to us."

"I think we have processes that will enable you relatively easily to get the tests and have... the confirmation of the negative tests forwarded to us electronically."

No comment back yet from CDC

Mr. Fain was asked if the CDC had responded yet to the Healthy Sail Panel protocols, but Mr. Fain explained they had not, nor did they expect them to quite this quickly.

"No, we only just gave it to them on Monday, and as you've seen, it is a extensive and comprehensive document, but we have not heard any comment back from them since we submitted it on Monday, nor would we have expected to do that quickly."

Ever since Royal Caribbean shut down operations in March, everyone has been wondering when and how the cruise line will start back up again.

While there is no clear answer just yet, there have been some clues and guidance provided throughout the shutdown by Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain.

Mr. Fain has spoken on television, in webinars, and on conference calls many times during the voluntary cruise suspension, and offered hints at what cruises starting up again will involve.

For anyone trying to piece together Royal Caribbean's game plan, here is some of the significant plans Richard Fain hinted or alluded to over the last few months.

Slow and methodical return

Despite losing money everyday with cruises not operating, Royal Caribbean has been adamant about getting their plans right before starting up again.

Richard Fain has spoken repeatedly about a slow and careful approach to returning, and using the time off to focus on crafting a solution to keep guests and crew members safe onboard.

"We will not rush to return to service until we are confident that we have figured out the changes that we must make to offer our guests and crew strong health and safety protocols with the enjoyable experience that they rightly expect," Mr. Fain said during an earnings call with investors in August.

In addition, he mentioned Royal Caribbean is learning from other cruise lines that have started back up around the world. Mr. Fain emphasized the strategy of cruises starting back up "slowly and methodically", and the need to learn from these first cruises back.

Capacity of ships will be reduced initially

One change we can expect when cruises resume is there will be less passengers onboard.

In order to foster social distancing, Royal Caribbean will limit the amount of passengers on its ships.  There has been no indication yet how they will do that in situations where sailings are already past a given threshold for a limit, but that is likely forthcoming.

Mr. Fain was very clear on this strategy during a webinar in July, "It is likely that when protocols are implemented, at least at the beginning, the capacity of the ships will will be reduced."

"It's likely we'll start out at lower capacity in Europe, the capacity levels for the starting up or at 60 to 70 percent potential load factors. And obviously that's quite a bit less than we're used to."

"But I think over time, particularly as treatments and pervasiveness of the disease and especially vaccines, that will then go back up. So there's a cost in the early period which hopefully will disappear fairly quickly."

Four tiers making cruising safe

Royal Caribbean's approach to cruises resuming safely focuses on four major tenets, which Mr. Fain outlined in July.

• Screening
• Onboard the ship
• Destinations ship visit
• What if there is a case on a Royal Caribbean ship?

"We really need to be able to address all four of those. You probably have some ideas by seeing what's happening elsewhere, but we have some really cool, innovative ideas coming out of the committee."

New ships and projects delayed

In order to cut or defer costs, Royal Caribbean has had to delay new builds and projects.

"On top of all these efforts, most of our capital projects have been delayed or canceled because we don't know how long it will take to get beyond this epidemic," Mr. Fain outlined during a call with Wall Street analysts.

"These are painful, but these are necessary decisions, I have to say that these five months have been the longest five months any of us can remember now since the crisis began."

We already know that the new Galveston cruise terminal is delayed a year, Odyssey of the Seas is delayed until 2021, and Wonder of the Seas is delayed until 2022.  Royal Caribbean has made no other announcements regarding the timeline of other projects such as the Freeport or Nassau port projects, or Perfect Day at Vanuatu or Royal Beach Club.

Which ships will sail first

When the time is right for cruises to return, only a few ships will start up initially.

Richard Fain explained in the first quarter 2020 results call that when Royal Caribbean starts sailing again, the entire fleet will not resume at once.

"We don't expect that... someday somebody blows a horn, and all the ships start operating right away. We think that it will be a gradual start, a little bit like society is opening up gradually."

"So we would imagine that we would start with fewer ships, and more likely to be more drive markets in the beginning, and then it would then evolve and grow from there."

Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain spoke openly about about the state of the industry in a recent video posted, seeing "encouraging" progress in the cruise industry.

With the cruise industry in the midsts of a 5-month long shutdown and more to come, a positive outlook is always a welcome change of pace.

Mr. Fain talked about the bright spots of good news coming out of cruising, that leads him to believe things are getting better.

"So we're not through this yet, but there are more bright spots and bits of good news than there have been for quite a while," Mr. Fain remarked, "We are closer to the other side of this crisis every day."

In addition to news about different vaccines and treatments, Mr. Fain was happy to see some European cruise lines successfully resume operations.

"In Germany, our joint venture company, Tui Cruises, has been operating cruises since late July. In Italy, MSC Cruises started operating last week and has attracted a lot of really very positive publicity. We understand Costa Cruises is starting operating there in just a few weeks."

Slow return of cruises

Mr. Fain emphasized the strategy of cruises starting back up "slowly and methodically", and the need to learn from these first cruises back.

For a few months, Royal Caribbean Group executives have emphasized the need to start cruises slowly and with the right procedures in place.

In early August, Mr. Fain spoke about this topic during an earnings call with analysts where he emphasized the importance of making sure cruises are safe before they start up again.

"It's fair to say that there is still a lot of uncertainty against this backdrop. We will not rush to return to service until we are confident that we have figured out the changes that we must make to offer our guests and crew strong health and safety protocols with the enjoyable experience that they rightly expect."