Carnival Corp. has been in the news a lot lately, and frankly not all of it has been good. The company has been under a cloud since the Concordia accident last year, and the more recent distress of the Carnival Triumph only made matters worse.
The latest quarterly financial report confirms that its flagship Carnival Cruise Lines brand is underperforming, and while corporate net income rose, stockholders are looking at reduced earnings per share.
Now comes word that Micky Arison, son of co-founder Ted Arison, is relinquishing the CEO title that he has held since 1979, while remaining chairman of the board. The new CEO, beginning this week, is board member Arnold Donald, a relative unknown despite his 12 years on the Carnival board.
Pundits have said just about everything about this move that could be said, but we can't resist adding a note to the chorus, and that note is: cool.
We mean that in a good way, in the sense that Carnival is addressing its challenges the same way it always has: calmly and with confidence. Companies in panic mode often try to change their stripes, frequently with disastrous results. Carnival Corp. isn't doing that.
Even though Arison was criticized in some quarters for remaining in the background during the Concordia rescue and recovery operations last year, one could hardly fault his determination to repair the damage to the Costa brand and to Carnival Corp. As he told this newspaper at the time, "We will get over this. It may take a year or two, and if it does, we'll stick with it."
If that's the attitude that helped to make Carnival Corp. the world's most successful cruise company, then any stakeholders prone to worry about the company should take it as a good sign that this particular stripe doesn't seem to be changing.
For Carnival Cruise Lines, however, it's a little more complicated. Many agents feel that this is a brand that could afford to change a few of its stripes. They need to be won over.
Carnival appears confident that retired Carnival Cruise Lines president Bob Dickinson, in his new consulting role, in partnership with CEO Gerry Cahill, can help bring that about. We wish them every success.
And so, we surmise, does Arnold Donald.