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Carnival Corporation & plc's North American Brands to Implement Fuel Supplement
MIAMI, Nov. 7 2007/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- As a result of the continued rapidescalation of fuel prices, the North American brands of Carnival Corporation &plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK) have announced they will implement a fuelsupplement of $5 per person per day.
The fuel supplement, which only applies to the first and second guests ina stateroom and will not exceed $70 per person per voyage, is effective on allbookings for voyages departing on or after Feb. 1, 2008 on the followingCarnival Corporation & plc brands - Carnival Cruise Lines, Costa Cruises,Cunard Line, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, and The Yachts ofSeabourn.
According to Carnival Corporation & plc Chairman and CEO Micky Arison, therecent spike in fuel prices has dramatically impacted the company's operatingcosts, thus necessitating the supplement. The price the company pays for fuelhas increased 140 percent over the last three years, with a 50 percentincrease occurring in just the last seven months.
"Earlier this year, we implemented a supplement for our European brands.We had hoped to avoid a similar supplement for our North American brands butwith the price of oil approaching $100 a barrel this is no longer possible.The implementation of the fuel supplement beginning February 1 for our NorthAmerican brands will result in consumers paying approximately one-third of ouryear-over-year fuel cost increases over the first six months of the fiscalyear," he said.
Arison added that the company had been considering a supplement for sometime but held off as long as it could. "We are hopeful fuel prices willsomeday return to a level that will enable us to eliminate this supplement.Until then, we believe that guests sailing on our North American brands willunderstand the dilemma that soaring fuel prices has caused for our company andindustry and that a fuel supplement was needed to enable us to continueoffering the high quality cruises our guests have come to expect," Arisonexplained.
The fuel supplement of $5 per person per day will be applied to all newand existing bookings for cruises on or after February 1, 2008. For existingreservations, travel agents will receive $10 per booking in administrativecompensation for notifying their clients of the new fuel supplement andcollecting the additional funds. Carnival Corporation & plc brands willprovide additional information on the fuel supplement via their respective Websites, as well as through various marketing and collateral materials.
Carnival Corporation & plc is the largest cruise vacation group in theworld, with a portfolio of cruise brands in North America, Europe andAustralia, comprised of Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, PrincessCruises, Seabourn Cruise Line, AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard Line,Iberocruceros, Ocean Village, P&O Cruises and P&O Cruises Australia.
Together, these brands operate 84 ships totaling 156,000 lower berths with21 new ships scheduled to enter service between December 2007 and June 2012.Carnival Corporation & plc also operates Holland America Tours and PrincessTours, the leading tour companies in Alaska and the Canadian Yukon. Traded onboth the New York and London Stock Exchanges, Carnival Corporation & plc isthe only group in the world to be included in both the S&P 500 and the FTSE100 indices.
SOURCE Carnival Corporation & plc
CONTACT:
Media, U.S.: Tim Gallagher of Carnival Corporation & plc,+1-305-599-2600 ext. 16000;
U.K.: Sophie Fitton or Sophie Brand of BrunswickGroup, +44 (0) 20 7404 5959;
or Investors: Beth Roberts of CarnivalCorporation & plc, +1-305-406-4832
Web site: #
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