Cruise operators are pushing federal health authorities to let voyages begin in July, but the two sides are clashing on how to restart voyages.
The industry argues that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest guidance that travel poses low risks for fully vaccinated individuals should apply to cruises, too. It wants the agency to scrap its plans for a phased sailing restart that has been in place since the fall.
"We'd just like to be treated similar to the rest of travel and entertainment and tourism sector," Carnival Corp. Chief Executive Arnold Donald said Wednesday.
The CDC still recommends against travel on cruise ships because of what it calls a very high risk of Covid-19 on such vessels. And while the agency is sticking with the phased approach, it recently pointed to the possibility of a summer restart of service.
The agency's "goal aligns with the desire for resumption of passenger operations in the United States expressed by many major cruise-ship operators and travelers, hopefully by midsummer," a CDC spokeswoman said Wednesday. Cruise operators haven't sailed from the U.S. for about a year after coronavirus outbreaks brought voyages to a halt.
The industry remains unsatisfied with its treatment. Carnival, the world's largest cruise operator, is very disappointed with the CDC's latest guidance for operators, Mr. Donald said.
"We support cruising resumption in July and are looking forward to better understand how the CDC sees that unfolding, given there was no timeline issued with their announcement on Friday," a spokeswoman for trade group Cruise Lines International Association said Wednesday.
The CDC last week issued technical instructions for the industry on increasing the frequency of reporting Covid-19 cases and illnesses from weekly to daily, creating planning materials for cruise lines' agreements with local authorities and establishing a plan for crew and port personnel's vaccinations. The update didn't specify when operators can resume sailing out of the U.S.
The CDC's framework for a phased restart requires operators to conduct mock sailings and apply for a certificate at least 60 days before offering passenger cruises. The industry says the process shouldn't be that tedious as vaccination rates pick up.
"That is not necessarily a workable or practical solution," Mr. Donald said of the CDC's April 2 update, adding that the company is in dialogue with the CDC and the Biden administration.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts said they are optimistic that the CDC's signal for a potential summer resumption could break the impasse between the industry and the government. "The industry obtaining a timeline was always the largest and most important hurdle as far as investors were concerned," JPMorgan said in a note to clients.
Carnival Cruise Line this week extended its U.S. pause through June 30. The company's flagship line hasn't made plans to relocate ships from U.S. ports, though it "may have no choice but to do so in order to resume our operations, which have been on pause for over a year," said Christine Duffy, the brand's president.
Resuming service from the U.S., a main passenger cruise market, would mean the start of a reversal of losses for operators. Carnival on Wednesday posted a fiscal first-quarter loss of nearly $2 billion after losing $10.24 billion for all of fiscal 2020. Booking volumes for future cruises during the latest quarter, which ended Feb. 28, were about 90% higher than the preceding quarter, the company said. Advanced bookings for 2022 are ahead of 2019, it added.
Carnival shares rose 1.4% to $29 Wednesday and have roughly tripled from a year ago, though they remain below pre-pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, Carnival and other operators are counting on their pockets of revenue outside the U.S. Carnival's Seabourn luxury line said it received approval from Greece to restart voyages in July. Other countries, including Singapore, Italy and the U.K., have authorized cruises or set a clear target date for them to set sail. Almost 400,000 passengers have sailed since some countries began to allow cruises again in July 2020, according to CLIA.
The CDC has recommended that all eligible port personnel and travelers get vaccinated but didn't specify vaccination as a requirement. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. said Tuesday that it would require passengers and crew to be fully vaccinated before boarding a ship. The company sees the CDC as a big influence over other countries' approach to cruising.
"When CDC shut the cruise industry down [in March 2020], just about every other country followed," Chief Executive Frank Del Rio said in an interview. "We believe the reverse will occur."
The industry, which spent $4.4 million on federal lobbyists last year, has allies in government. Officials in Florida, the hub of cruise operations in the U.S., last month said the state would consider legal options if the CDC wouldn't let cruise operators restart sailings soon.
"It's incredibly important as we examine all options and determine what our legal avenues are to push back against this government overreach into an industry that is so vitally important to the success of this state," said Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, at a meeting with cruise executives.
Write to Dave Sebastian at dave.sebastian@wsj.com
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