Scheduled for delivery in 2023, the 180,000gt ship will have an estimated 2,700 staterooms. No price was announced but Seatrade has estimated the first two vessels, with approximately 5,000 lower berths apiece, at $1bn each.
'The interest in AIDAnova, the first ship of our new generation, is enormous, even before the commissioning later this year,' AIDA president Felix Eichhorn said. 'With today's new shipbuilding contract, we will ensure the further growth of the cruise market in the long term and will be able to provide excellent cruises for this steadily growing holiday segment in the future as well.'
AIDA’s first fully LNG-powered ship from the Papenburg yard will be handed over Nov. 15 this year, with the second coming in 2021 and, now, this third following two years later.
The engine room modules for all three ships are being supplied by sister facility Neptun Werft in Rostock. These modules contain the entire engine room for each ship, LNG tanks and all machinery systems and installations.
In total, Carnival Corp. has agreements in place with Meyer Werft and Finland's Meyer Turku to build nine LNG-powered cruise ships across four brands with delivery dates between 2018 and 2023. Besides the three for AIDA Cruises, two are for Costa Cruises with expected delivery dates in 2019 and 2021, two are for P&O Cruises with scheduled deliveries in 2020 and 2022 and two for Carnival Cruise Line, due in 2020 and 2022.
Today's newbuild will be the 10th for AIDA from Meyer Werft, managing director Tim Meyer noted.
The Papenburg builder has orders for 14 ships to be delivered by 2023. About €50m to €80m per year are invested in the shipyard, which is recruiting specialists in IT and other departments.
This brings the cruise orderbook to 94 firmly contracted ships, nearing a total value of $59bn.
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