Good morning, everyone, welcome to our business update conference call. I'm Arnold Donald, President and CEO of Carnival Corporation & plc. Today, I'm joined telephonically by our Chairman, Micky Arison, as well as David Bernstein, our Chief Financial Officer, and Beth Roberts, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you all for joining us this morning. Before I begin, please note that some of our remarks on this call will be forward-looking. I must refer you to the cautionary statement in today's press release. The thing on everyone's mind is when are we going to resume sailing here in the U.S.?
While we're very disappointed with the April 2nd additional guidance issued under the Conditional Sailing Order, all 30 of our ships in U.S. waters and that fall under the Conditional Sailing Order have achieved green status, and we are continuing to work with the CDC and the administration to find practical approaches to resuming cruising in a way that serves the best interest of public health. It's been over a year since we paused our guest cruise operations, but we are on our way back, and we are coming back an even stronger company operationally. Throughout this pause, we have been positioning Carnival to return to operations an even stronger company. We're emerging with an exciting roster of new ships across our brands to capitalize on pent-up demand.
We are achieving significant cost efficiencies from the exit of less efficient ships, along with ongoing streamlining of shoreside operations relative to pre-COVID levels. We've continued progress on our sustainability efforts, with an emphasis on minimizing our carbon footprint. We are excited that the majority of our nine brands will resume sailing this summer, albeit on a limited basis. In fact, AIDA is already sailing from the Canary Islands to overwhelmingly positive feedback from our German guests. For Southern Europe, following a voluntary pause, Costa will resume sailing with two ships beginning next month in May. For the U.K., P&O Cruises will have two ships offering U.K. coastal cruising in June and August, including the inaugural sailing for the brand's new flagship, Iona.
Cunard will have the first of its three ships sailing in July, and Princess is offering summer staycations out of the U.K. with two ships starting in July and August respectively. Last, but certainly not least, Seabourn will offer ultra-luxury cruises and signature Seabourn moments sailing from Greece this summer. Again, as we have demonstrated, our portfolio of brands has clearly been an asset as we have announced resuming operations so far with nine ships representing 12% of our fleet. In addition, we are also opening our hotels and tour operations in Alaska this summer. Our ownership of the vast majority of land-based infrastructure has been key to our leading presence in Alaskan cruising. Opening our hotels will also help support our longtime partners in Alaska, who have been very strong advocates for our return to sailing.
We are focused on resuming operations as quickly as practical, while at the same time demonstrating prudent stewardship of capital and doing so in a way that serves the best interests of public health. Our highest responsibility, and therefore our top priority, is always compliance, environmental protection, and the health, safety, and well-being of our guests, of the people in the communities we touch and serve, and, of course, of our Carnival family, our team members shipboard and shoreside. We continue to be very encouraged about recent vaccine distribution and the positive progress this signals. Vaccines are a game-changer. They're another important tool along with advancements in treatment therapies, contact tracing technology, and affordable rapid testing.
Now, while we will have a limited number of sailings catering to those who have already received vaccines, our decisions about vaccines and all of our health protocols continue to be informed by our global medical and science experts and the requirements of the places we operate and visit. We continue to work on securing the ability to resume cruising from U.S. ports in a manner consistent with the expected return of other forms of travel, leisure, and entertainment activities. At the same time, we are, of course, working toward resuming operations in other parts of the world, including Australia and Asia. In fact, 59 of our 90 ships are outside the U.S. conditional sail order. Meanwhile, despite minimal advertising, we've seen an acceleration in booking trends globally, with a near doubling in booking volumes during the first quarter 2021 compared to the previous quarter.
We've also experienced significant latent demand upon opening new sailings this summer. In fact, P&O opened to its single biggest booking day in seven years on the announcement of coastal sailings for its two ships this summer and generated significant buzz with nearly one billion media mentions so far. Likewise, Cunard's summer at sea luxury U.K. voyages drove their biggest booking day in the U.K. in over a decade, while Princess had its second-biggest booking day in the U.K. ever. The strong initial demand has affirmed our confidence and indicates the potential for further pricing strength. Over the last 14 months, agility has been a key strength. 2021 will clearly be a transition year. We expect the environment to remain dynamic over the next 12 months as we roll out our fleet while continuing to adapt to an ever-changing situation.
As expected, the introduction of ships for each of our brands, and we'll ramp up the number of vessels and the occupancy levels over time as destinations reopen and we gain further experience with our enhanced protocols. Each brand is coming back operationally stronger than before. While it will be some time before we return to prior capacity levels after accelerating the exit of less efficient ships, we have an exciting roster of new ships which we'll be rolling out across each brand. In fact, in conjunction with our return to service, nearly every brand will welcome a new ship by year-end. Now, these exciting new ships are considerably more efficient, and they will drive even more enthusiasm, excitement, and demand around our restart plans with both our brand loyalists and with new-to-cruise.
Beginning with our namesake brand, Carnival, introducing the new Mardi Gras, just in time to commemorate the upcoming 50-year anniversary of the original Mardi Gras. The new Mardi Gras promises not to disappoint the brand's reputation built on 50 years of fun. Even after 50 years, Carnival Cruise Line continues to innovate, this time with the first-ever roller coaster at sea. Quote, Mardi Gras also boasts restaurants from Emeril Lagasse, Guy Fieri, and Shaquille O'Neal. The highly anticipated Mardi Gras was recently named Best New Cruise Ship by USA Today for these exciting innovations, including its liquefied natural gas propulsion system, the first LNG cruise ship in North America, reflecting our ongoing commitment to improve our carbon footprint.
In North America, premium brand Holland America will introduce the new Rotterdam, featuring its iconic Music Walk experience, including B.B. King's Blues Club, Rolling Stone Rock Room, and Lincoln Center Stage. Princess will introduce two new ships, both of which will feature MedallionClass, as will, for the very first time, the entire Princess fleet. Seabourn Venture will set a new standard in expedition cruising for ultra-luxury Seabourn with spectacular features, including two 360-degree-view, battery-powered submarines capable of taking guests to depths of 1,000 feet. Seabourn Venture will have a world-class expedition team of 26 staff who specialize in destination-specific geology, oceanography, marine biology, penguins, and polar bears, among others. As exploring the underwater world of Antarctica at depths beyond 100 feet has only been done by a handful of people, Seabourn's guests will get to share in a true once-in-a-lifetime experience.
In the U.K., we welcome Iona, also powered by LNG, with her inaugural sailing August 7th. Her maiden voyage will indeed be special as she sails from England with coastal cruising of Scotland, including her namesake, the beautiful island of Iona. For Germany, we will introduce yet another environmentally friendly LNG ship, AIDAcosma. For Southern Europe, Costa Toscana and Costa Firenze will replace the exit of several less efficient ships. Costa Toscana, curated by Adam Tihany, is Costa's second LNG ship and is a tribute to Tuscany. Costa Firenze's interior design is a celebration of the city of Florence. Costa Firenze has been recognized by RINA with Green Star 3 for excellence in environmental performance. Of course, we will also achieve a structural benefit to unit costs as we deliver these new, larger, more efficient ships.
In addition, we will further benefit from the 19 ships leaving the fleet which are among our least efficient ships. In fact, 17 of the 19 ships have already left the fleet. The combination of all of that will generate a 4% reduction in ship-level unit costs and a 3% reduction in unit fuel consumption going forward, enabling us to deliver more revenue to the bottom line. We also continue our efforts to right-size our shoreside operations and find efficiencies across our existing fleet to reduce our costs further. Importantly, during this pause, we have made continuous improvements in the environmental, social, and governance areas. Now, while we've made significant progress on many fronts, we continue to focus on the important issue of carbon intensity.
For more than a decade, we've demonstrated our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint through the development of more efficient new ships, through the disposal of older, less efficient ships, and through our ongoing investments in efficiency enhancements for the existing fleet, which have averaged $70 million annually, and through our results. Despite fleet-wide capacity growth of 25% from 2011 to 2019, our absolute carbon emissions peaked in 2011, and we delivered a more than 30% reduction in our carbon intensity since 2005. We also lead the industry in the development of shore power. Over 40% of our fleet is capable of plugging in while in port, enabling power from more sustainable sources.
To date, only 16 of the more than 700 ports we visit worldwide offer this shore power capability, but we are working with our port partners to increase availability, as demonstrated by our recently announced plans with Mayor Cava and the Port of Miami. We lead the industry in development of and continue improvements in advanced air quality systems. Currently, 78 of our 90 ships have been fitted with these systems. As a result, these ships achieve lower sulfur emissions and the same or lower nitrous and particulate matter as ships operating on marine gas oil or MGO while avoiding the carbon impact from the additional refining needed for MGO. Through our research and development efforts, we have aggressively implemented new technologies, such as the aforementioned development of ships powered by LNG, the most environmentally friendly fossil fuel.
A clear demonstration of our level of commitment was shown when we made the decision to build these ships, even though at the time the decisions were made, the infrastructure for LNG was not yet in place. We partnered with Shell to develop the supply chains to support LNG operations. We now have 11 LNG ships, either currently in the fleet or under construction, representing nearly 20% of our overall fleet capacity. The utilization of LNG is a positive step for the environment, but it is not the ultimate solution. Our goal is to eventually achieve net zero emissions. To get there over time, we are aggressively looking at other options like advanced lithium-ion battery technologies and fuel cell technologies. Moreover, we have also advanced our efforts on social responsibility and governance.
For example, half of our operating companies are now led by women executives, reflecting our commitment to diversity and inclusion. Upon resuming operations, an even greater portion of executive pay will be tied to health, environment, safety, security, and sustainability performance. Turning to our financial objectives, first and foremost is to maximize cash generation. While we have secured the liquidity to sustain us well into 2022, even with zero revenue, our cash flow, once we return to full operations, will be the primary driver to return to investment-grade credit over time, creating greater shareholder value. We've lowered our capacity growth to roughly 2.5% compound annually through 2025. We've structurally reduced costs. We're working to lower interest costs, we are working aggressively to return our fleet to guest operations as quickly as practical and still serving the best interest of public health.
With the aggressive actions we've already taken, managing the balance sheet and reducing capacity, we are well-positioned to capitalize on pent-up demand and to emerge a leaner, more efficient company, reinforcing our industry-leading position. Throughout these challenging times, we have received overwhelming support. Again, thank you to our valued guests. Thank you to our dedicated members of the Carnival family, shipboard and shoreside. Thank you to our travel agent partners, and thank you to our other many stakeholders for their ongoing support. Of course, especially thank you to our investors for their continued confidence in us and in our future. We can't wait to welcome everyone back on board. With that, I will turn the call over to David.
Thank you, Arnold. I'll start today with an update on booking trends. I'll provide our monthly average cash burn rate, along with a summary of our first quarter cash flows. Next, for those of you who are modeling our net income and EPS, I will provide you with some key data and then finish up with some insights into our financial position. Turning to booking trends. Our booking volumes have been very strong given the circumstances. Booking volumes for all future cruises during the first quarter 2021 were approximately 90% ahead of booking volumes during the fourth quarter 2020. Just as positive, our cumulative advanced book position for the full year 2022 is ahead of a very strong 2019, which was at the high end of the historical range.
I would like to point out that our booking volumes and book position are very encouraging given that they were achieved with minimal advertising and promotional activity. Pricing on a full year 2022 book position is higher than pricing on bookings at the same time for 2019 sailings if you normalize for bundled packages and exclude the dilutive impact of future cruise credits, or more commonly known as FCCs. This is a great achievement given pricing on bookings for 2019 sailings is a tough comparison as that was a high watermark for historical yield. We normalized for bundled packages since over the past year or so, we have offered and our guests have chosen more and more bundled package options. In the end, we expect to see the benefit of these bundled packages in onboard and other revenue.
Even more encouraging is the overall improved pricing trends we have seen over the last few weeks as we have announced the restart of cruise operations in several of our brands. I just want to remind everyone that due to the pause in guest cruise operations, the company's booking trends are being compared to booking trends for 2019 sailings and not the prior year. Now let's look at our monthly average cash burn rate. For the first quarter, our cash burn rate was $500 million, which was better than the previous expectation of $600 million, mainly due to the timing of capital expenditures.
For the first half 2021, we now expect our monthly average rate to be approximately $550 million, which includes additional restart expenditures. I am happy to say that this monthly average rate includes more restart expenses as we have recently resumed or announced the resumption of guest cruise operations for six of our nine brands while we continue to plan for the others. Despite the additional restart expenses, our monthly average rate for the first half of 2021 is expected to be lower than previously indicated, as our teams have worked tirelessly to opportunistically find ways to reduce our cash burn rate. I'll provide a summary of our first quarter cash flows. We are currently in a solid liquidity position with $11.5 billion of cash and short-term investments on our balance sheet at the end of the first quarter.
Even better, this is $2 billion more cash than we had on the balance sheet at the end of the fourth quarter. During the first quarter, we added to our liquidity position by completing two very well-received capital market transactions with cumulative net proceeds of $4.4 billion. The senior unsecured note offering, which was upsized due to the strong demand, raised $3.4 billion, while our overnight equity offering raised $1 billion. This was partially offset by two things. First, our total cash burn for the quarter was $1.5 billion, simply our monthly average cash burn rate of $500 million per month times three. Second, $900 million driven by principal debt payments. I would like to point out that our total customer deposits were unchanged this quarter compared to the fourth quarter 2020 at $2.2 billion, with cash inflows from new bookings offsetting cash refunds.
This is a welcome point on the road to the full resumption of guest cruise operations. For those of you who are modeling our net income and EPS, let me provide you with some key data points. Depreciation expense for 2021 is expected to be approximately $2.2 billion. Net interest expense for 2021 is projected to be approximately $1.7 billion prior to our refinancing efforts later this year to reduce that number. While our refinancing efforts will only have a partial year impact on 2021, they will certainly have a more pronounced full-year impact on 2022. Our dilutive weighted average shares outstanding for the second quarter 2021 and fiscal year 2022 is expected to be 1.132 billion. For fiscal year 2023 and beyond, it will be around 1.185 billion. The increase from 2022 to 2023 is driven by the conversion of our remaining convertible notes.
I think it's worth noting that we also incurred almost $200 million of non-cash expenses during the first quarter 2021 for things like lease asset amortization and share-based compensation. It appears these items were not fully captured in consensus estimates given the focus on cash burn. Finally, I will finish up with some insights into our financial position. Since the pause in our guest cruise operations a little over a year ago, we raised $23.6 billion through a series of transactions. These transactions included equity offerings raising over $4 billion. These equity offerings, along with retiring $1.5 billion of our convertible notes through the issuance of common stock, considerably strengthened our balance sheet. From a financial position perspective, the last year was about obtaining sufficient liquidity to get through the pause in guest cruise operations.
However, with $11.5 billion of cash and short-term investments on our balance sheet at the end of the first quarter, we believe we have enough liquidity to get us back to full guest cruise operations. As we look forward, given the improvement in the debt capital markets, where interest rates for companies like ours are less than half of what they were last year, we will be pursuing refinancing opportunities to reduce our interest expense and extend our maturities. Now I'll turn the call back over to Arnold.
Thank you, David. Operator, please open the call to questions.
Thank you. If you would like to register a question, please press star one four on your telephone. You will hear a three-tone prompt technology request. If your question has been answered and you like to withdraw your registration, please press one four. One moment please for the first question. The Our first question comes from Steven Wieczynski with Stifel. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Good morning.
Hey, good morning.
Good morning, Arnold. Hope you're doing well. Seems like yesterday we got some additional comments from the CDC, which who knows if they're true or they're not. It seems like they could be at the point where they might be open to allowing cruising from North American ports by midsummer, which is encouraging. I guess the question's going to be, before those comments came out, we've seen some of your competitors start to announce Caribbean itineraries that are embarking from so-called foreign ports, and you guys really didn't do anything like that for your Carnival, your Princess kind of core North American brands. I guess that something that you would still explore at this point? Or do you just sit back and wait at this point to see what the CDC officially comes out for before you make that type of decision?
Hopefully that all makes sense.
Steven. I think, first of all, just a couple of things. Princess has announced some sailings from the U.K., some limited sailings from the U.K. You're correct, we haven't announced sailings yet for Princess or Carnival. We have announced for Seabourn sailings out of Greece, as an example. Look, the bottom line is this. We are in dialogue with CDC and with the administration. We stand with everybody in trying to make certain that we all contain this virus. Public health is paramount here. We're in all that. As released on April 2nd, that is not necessarily a workable or practical solution. We're in dialogue to try to come up with that. We want to share the optimism that we can be sailing in July, and I think by working together, we can all make that happen.
In terms of whether we will consider sailing or home porting out of the Caribbean, Carnival is really America's original cruise line, it is America's line. We sail more people than anybody else from America, and more kids and all that. Part of that is the drive-to market capabilities, access for people. We have the 14 home ports here in the U.S. Nobody else has anything like that for Carnival. We prefer to get the people who are working in the ports, all the people who depend on the cruise industry for their livelihood. Obviously, we prefer, and I'm sure the other companies would too, we prefer to have those jobs and all that stuff be here. If we're unable to sail, then obviously, we will consider home porting elsewhere. I hope I answered your question, Steven.
Yeah, you did. Thank you very much.
Thanks.
Second question, it's probably going to be for David. Pre-pandemic, you guys were always targeting a double-digit ROIC. I guess, if we assume cruising goes back to a so-called normal at some point over the next, call it, couple of years, is there any color you can give us around what that ROIC could look like now, given the much lower cost structure? Obviously, you have higher interest costs as well. Any color about what that ROIC could look like down the road, David? That'd be very helpful. Thanks.
Sure. Steven, just to point out, yes, we do have higher interest expense, but clearly the return on invested capital is on all of the capital. The interest expense doesn't impact the ROIC calculation. We are still targeting an ROIC in the double digits. As we've said many times before, once we get to the double digits, we're not going to stop there. This is a business that we believe has the capability of going beyond that and getting an ROIC in the low to mid-teens. We are moving forward and have a lot of optimism and positive attitude towards our business.
Okay, great. Thanks, guys. Thanks for the color.
Our next question comes from Robin Farley with UBS. Please proceed.
Great. Thanks. On the comments last night from the CDC, I was interested that you didn't mention the potential to have those brands operating from U.S. ports, I guess it sounds like the April 2nd specifications might be burdensome. I guess my question is, if you're reaching agreements with ports and local healthcare authorities in those places, isn't it possible that if you probability weight the outcome of all of the scenarios that you need to take into account according to the specifications and the healthcare you have to provide and the land base, if you probability weight that outcome with a fully vaccinated ship, can't that get you to a number that's low enough, right? In other words, a fully vaccinated ship probability, I would think, would be so tiny that you would need to incur those costs. Isn't it workable in a probability-weighted scenario?
Robin, there's a lot in your question. I think the conversation around negotiating with ports and local authorities, depending on the specificity and the criteria involved and all that, we do that anyway. For example, we've sailed overseas. The industry has sailed, I think, almost 400,000 guests so far overseas. To do that, we have to have arrangements with all those places and destinations we go. That unto itself, depending, again, on the criteria established and the paperwork and all that, it may not be so burdensome because we need to have an understanding. Keep in mind, when all this started, people were concerned about ICU units being overwhelmed, and so on. Fortunately, that hasn't happened with the advent of vaccines, with the advancement in treatments, with more rapid testing, more readily available testing.
With all of that, it appears we're on a trend and a trajectory where that is no longer the big risk. Having said that, of course, we want to be having a prearranged agreement with what we're going to do if there's a case on board, because if it's in the community, there's a chance of it being on board. The specific solutions you're referring to in terms of everybody vaccinated and so on and so forth, we'll have to see how all that evolves. We continue to be informed by our global medical and science experts. Of course, we're going to be in compliance with whatever the protocols are regulated wherever we go. Of course, we're going to do that. As you know, today, everybody doesn't have access to vaccines. Children are not yet really eligible for vaccines. Hopefully, that'll change over time.
Hopefully, the availability of the vaccines, so everyone will have access, will also change over time. We would encourage everyone to be vaccinated. We would. Today, we can't buy vaccines to do anything. We just have to let this play out and keep in mind, we are currently sailing without any major incident, without anybody being vaccinated, and with protocols in place. You're hoping that the combination of vaccinations and other protocols will result in a situation where the public health interest is being served, and we don't have to go through a very burdensome and almost unworkable situation. The key thing is mitigating risk. We hope we won't be asked to stand up to a zero-risk standard, because frankly, nowhere else in society is that being considered.
We'd just like to be treated similar to the rest of travel and entertainment and tourism sector. If we do that, we'll be fine. An interesting point is today you can fly out of the U.S., take a cruise, and fly back into the U.S., whether you're vaccinated or not. Today, if you're vaccinated, you can't take a cruise ship from the U.S. We've got a little work to do here, but we stand with the CDC, we stand with the administration in working together to come up with practical solutions that protect the public health, but allow half-million-plus people in the U.S. that are dependent on the cruise industry for jobs, to be able to get back to work and give people the vacation experience of their choice. Thank you.
Great. No, thank you. Thank you for that perspective. Just one quick follow-up. Just thinking about the opportunity to put additional ships into service this summer, given the booking stats. You mentioned those record booking levels and all the pent-up demand that we're seeing. How far in advance, how close in could you add additional July departures? In other words, does that have to happen by the end of April to sort of reasonably add other ships in July? Just thinking about that timing. Thanks.
Thank you. Our biggest constraint right now, of course, is being able to ramp up with crew. It'll take us minimum 60 up to 90 days to be able to get a crew on board, trained up with new protocols, et cetera, to be able to execute a sailing. If you can backtrack from that in terms of when we'd be able to go with an announcement. That's the biggest challenge we have is ramping crew. We do have the opportunity from a demand standpoint, assuming we have the crew available and ready to go and trained up, that we can do closer-in announcements on itineraries and sailings because the demand is there.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from James Hardiman with Wedbush Securities. Please proceed.
Hey, morning. Thanks for taking my questions here. A lot of discussion about vaccines and how that may or may not help the regulatory landscape. I'm curious about the consumer landscape. Obviously, you've got certain customers that would see a vaccine requirement as a reassuring step, creating a bubble on the sea, so to speak. You've got another contingent that would see that as somewhat taking away their freedoms. Talk a little bit about, I'm sure you've surveyed your own customer base and how you think about how big those different contingencies are, and how you serve both of them.
Well, I would say, first of all, we would encourage everyone to get a vaccine if available. Today, that combined with other basic simple measures you can take is your best defense against getting COVID, and certainly your best defense against having any serious effects if you do get COVID. We would encourage everyone to get a vaccine. Having said that, of course, people have the individual personal liberties, et cetera. To my knowledge, we're involved in the World Travel & Tourism Council, we're involved in U.S. travel group, et cetera. To my knowledge, there is no major country today that is mandating vaccines for travel. The option is vaccines or testing or whatever. That's my understanding today.
As you can see, as you go about the society today, whether it's restaurants or entertainment venues, some of the sports teams are opening up where they're taking guests in. There's not a mandate for vaccinations. In some places in the world, it's not even legal to mandate vaccinations or anything. There's a lot of complication in all of that. Having said that, as I said before, we'll be informed by the global experts, the medical experts, the scientists, and of course, we will follow whatever the protocols are that are regulated and in place wherever we go. We will have to follow those. You're right, there are a lot of people who don't feel even they are willing to take the vaccine, they don't want to be mandated to take it. People do have that personal freedom, perception, and orientation.
We want to encourage people to take the vaccine. What our ultimate policies will be, we'll have to let that evolve and see. In the U.K., we've announced some other sailings. In the U.K., we just announced one in Seabourn, where it's available to people who have vaccinations, but we do not have a company or brand policies right now around vaccinations, and we're going to allow that to play out and line up with what makes the most sense. Did I answer your question?
Got it. Very helpful. It does.
Thank you.
I guess, second question here, and you get this question all the time, but I figure it's worth asking every few months. Walk us through sort of your latest thoughts on the timetables around mobilizing the fleet? How quickly you could get to sort of cash flow breakeven? How long do you think it would take to get the full fleet up and running? As I think about occupancy, Norwegian talked about a 60% occupancy level to start. Do you think that's a reasonable number, or is there another number that you're thinking of?
Thanks. Okay. One other comment there, just to people on the vaccines, too, I just have to make is that, as I said, and I'll repeat it, everybody doesn't have access to vaccines today. Hopefully, that will change, and hopefully it'll change very quickly. Today, everyone doesn't have access. That's a whole other factor to put in. Children today are not approved to take vaccinations. There's testing going on, and science is at work. In coming months, that could change as well. Today, children, obviously, are not approved for vaccines. Those are additional vaccine comments. Now, back to your current question. Initially, think our U.K. sailings and some of the other sailings. Initially, we can have opportunity to practice the protocols and make sure everything is going as planned. We're starting with less than 50% occupancy.
That'll ramp up pretty quickly as we make certain that the execution is in place and going well. That's where we are in terms of the initial sailings. Again, for other companies, whatever theirs are, it's probably just a similar thought process though. People want to make sure that the protocols are in place and are working right, and we all get good practice with our crew and managing all of that. It would ramp up as we get better at it. That's the first comment. In terms of how quickly to get to breakeven, I'll let David make some comments on the financial perspective. What we've been saying is, depending on the brand and the ship size and a whole bunch of other things, 30%-50% of occupancy is better than breakeven financially for a given ship.
In terms of the overall fleet, we are going to come back staggered no matter what. We will be bringing in a few ships and a brand at a time. Hopefully, if we were approved to go and the destinations were all up and running, and we can have all the various itineraries and all that, ideally, we'd like to be able to have the fleet fully going by the end of this year or early next year. That's our aspiration and what we're working hard with various parties around the world to accomplish. The last comment I just want to emphasize for us, the U.S. is very important to us. At the same time though, is the rest of the world, and that's one of the benefits of all the brands we have.
As I said in my opening remarks, we have like 59 ships that are involved in other jurisdictions and other regulatory environments that we have to work with. Today, those are a little bit ahead of where we are in the U.S., but hopefully, we'll all get to a level playing field and be able to bring the fleet back over time. I hope I answered your question, but I'll let David make a comment if you want to add anything on the breakeven conversation.
Yeah. Let me just address the breakeven. It'd be very difficult at this point in time to determine exactly where we breakeven. There are so many variables. You're talking about pricing for the cruise ticket. There's the price of fuel. There's currency. What I've been doing is referring people back to our 2019 actual. When we looked at 2019, and I've said this before, if we had the top 25 ships in our fleet operating, and yes, they would be, I'm just talking about full operations with full occupancy. Those 25 ships would generate enough cash flow to cover the pause cost for the other 65 ships in our fleet, as well as cover the full $2.4 billion of SG&A that we had in 2019.
By the way, with Arnold's comments, coming back and being more efficient, hopefully we can do better than what we did in 2019 in terms of SG&A. Hopefully that helps you build your own model, because there are just too many variables at this point for me to be specific on the guidance of when we'd be cash flow breakeven.
It's very helpful. Arnold, David, thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Patrick Scholes with Truist. Please proceed.
Hi. Good morning, everyone.
Hi, Patrick.
Good morning. A couple questions for you. Yesterday, the CDC came out in a Bloomberg article. I quote, Hopefully by midsummer, there'll be restricted revenue sailings. I'm curious, I'm sure you've thought about this. By them saying restricted revenue, do you interpret that to mean test cruises, or would that be limited occupancy on paying cruises?
Thank you for the question, Patrick. I think I'd rather the CDC respond to what they were thinking when they said that. We want to work with them and the administration to ensure that ultimately it would be really revenue cruises at that point in time. We look forward to working with them, to come up with a practical approach that would make that happen and still serve the interests of public health.
Understood. Then in that regard, do you have a date in your mind? I don't expect you to tell what that date might be, but do you have a date in your mind that you'd just say, Hey, it's X date, and we're just not really moving forward here, sailing out of the United States, that you would possibly go ahead and pull the U.S. ships and sell them out of other countries at that point? Sort of a deadline date in your mind?
No, I wouldn't say there's a date per se. Obviously, practically speaking, as a company, we'll have to make prudent decisions for you, for our investors. We'll do what we think we need to do, to give people an opportunity to sail and to give an opportunity for people to work and earn a living and so on and so forth. We don't have an arbitrary date. I would say it's sooner rather than later that we might have to announce some additional home porting outside the U.S. We're trying to hold back on that. It could be sooner rather than later on that. I continue to be very much focused on working with the CDC and the administration to come up with a solution that works for American workers and the American public, and I think we can.
I think if we all just continue to work together, we'll figure that out.
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you for the update.
Where we have figured it out, and I think we can figure it out here, too. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
All right. Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Brandt Montour with JP Morgan. Please proceed.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Sorry, one more on vaccines and the CDC. I understand that you don't want to alienate any of your U.S. loyal guests. Under Norwegian's 100% vaccination plan, it's looking to ramp up load factors much more quickly than what we would expect. Anyone could probably realize under the Conditional Sailing Order that I realize that's a work in progress. My question is, if that strategy for Norwegian is able to move forward, is there a world in which you could envision moving to something like a hybrid approach, where some ships require vaccination and then you can ramp up loads really quickly, and then others are more available to people that didn't want to have a vaccine? Is that something that's on the table for you?
I think, again, that's one of probably a thousand different scenarios. In my comments, I mentioned agility and constantly changing dynamics and ability to adapt. Certainly, that's one of a thousand different possibilities. Hopefully, we can come up with something that wouldn't require those kinds of dynamics. I'm more than cautiously optimistic we all can, working together. I guess there could be scenarios like that. I'm hopeful that we'll have something much more straightforward that will accommodate. We'll let the scientists, and we'll let the appropriate authorities information we have.
Okay. Thanks for that. I'm surprised we haven't talked about your pricing commentary yet because it was really positive.
It's great.
Arnold, you mentioned further pricing, looking for further pricing strength. David, you mentioned the last few weeks' pricing trends were positive. I guess the question is, and you haven't even started marketing yet, so we would assume potentially that would be another catalyst. Is there any concern, or one concern we would have is that if people aren't booking non-balcony cabins or inner cabins right now, is there any benefit from cabin mix in those numbers?
I'll just make an overall comment first, David, to speak to the specifics. Generally, as you understand, I'm sure, what you have is a basic kind of supply-demand dynamic right now that we have very limited sailings available and a lot of pent-up demand. Therefore, there's an opportunity to give people a great value, the vacation experience they want, still at a much better value than equivalent land-based experience. Still a great value. We're seeing that reflected, though, in the general pricing strength. David, you go ahead and answer the specific question.
Keep in mind the pricing comment that we made, that pricing was up. We were looking at the full year 2022 booking trends. Essentially, substantially all our fleet is open for the full year 2022. What we see, we looked at it by quarter, we looked at it by brand, we looked at it by category mix, and we see the same general positive pricing trend regardless of how you look at it. We felt very good about the overall book position as well as the last couple of weeks, as I had said in my prepared remarks. Booking volumes and pricing was very encouraging in the last couple of weeks. By the way, it wasn't just on the voyages that we opened up for this summer, looking at 2022 as well.
Everybody wants to go away. I will tell you, the next best thing to actually going away is planning a vacation. That's what a lot of people seem to be doing right now.
Thanks for all the thoughts, and good luck.
Okay, thank you.
Our next question comes from Jaime Katz with Morningstar. Please proceed.
Good morning. I'm actually curious to understand a little bit better what the mechanics behind the revenue management process is right now, particularly whether you guys are filling the ships to that 50% mark, leaving some incremental ability closer in if you can fill more or whether you're booking above and beyond that for maybe later this year where there may have to be some adjustment or some of those reservations may have to be walked back, if that makes sense?
Yes. Well, first I'll make a few comments and then David, add whatever you like. When you think about revenue management, you think about the booking information we're sharing. A lot of booking is well out into 2022, and some is even into 2023, where we fully expect to have full occupancy and full fleet sailing and so on and so forth by that point in time. Where there's confidence, obviously, amongst those who want to cruise, that it's likely they'll be able to at that point in time. That's a lot of what's driving what you're hearing much more so than the near in, shorter-term stuff, which is more limited occupancy. David, go ahead.
Yeah, I think, Arnold, I think you said it well. First of all, on the revenue management side, Micky and Arnold and I have met with every single revenue management team recently, and we've been talking to them about what they're doing and how they're doing it and sharing best practices to make sure that everybody is thinking very clearly about what is optimal under the circumstances. As you would imagine, the models that we have, while they're helpful, they're not the answer in this environment. We have to layer in our own thought process on top of that. The people are actively thinking this through very carefully.
The limitations on occupancy that you're describing are more of a short-term thing that we are focused on for the voyages we've announced this summer in both the U.K. for P&O Cruises, Cunard and Princess, as well as what we're seeing with TUI and AIDA and of course, Seabourn in Greece as well. We are focused, and we will limit the occupancy as appropriate, the way Arnold had described. Of course, try to take advantage of the positive cabin mix in terms of pricing when we do that. It's a shorter-term issue, but when we look out to 2022 at this point in time, the percentage that's on the books is much lower, and therefore, as a result of that, the capacity limitations aren't a factor, and hopefully by then, when the full fleet's operating, we're operating at a much higher level of occupancy as well.
The vaccine rollout continues around the world, and hopefully, we get to a better place.
Okay. I think you had said demand quarter-over-quarter was up 90%. Is there a way to think about what the sort of organic part of that is and what part of that is attributable to itineraries that were open for 2021?
Let me tell you some of the things I looked at to better understand the demand and what flowed through. I looked at the first quarter bookings just for 2022, because all of those sailings were already open. For 2022, the bookings in the first quarter were higher than the bookings for 2019, which we all know was a very robust year. When I looked at the March bookings for 2022, I said they accelerated because just for 2022 in March, we saw a significant increase in bookings versus what we had seen in 2019. This was to my point, when you do an apples-to-apples comparison just for 2022 versus 2019, you're seeing some very positive booking momentum. As I said before, people are looking forward to getting away. There's all that pent-up demand, and they're planning their vacations.
Thank you for the clarification.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from David Hargreaves with Stifel. Please proceed.
Hi, great job on controlling cash burn. With respect to the refinancing efforts that you talked about, I'm just wondering if there are any specific elements of the debt stack that you may be targeting and whether we should be thinking in terms of equity clawbacks. I have a follow-up. Thank you.
David?
In general, you can look at all of the debt that we did early last year in the April, June and July and August timeframe, which was, as Arnold has said, very expensive. Those are the things that we're focused on in terms of refinancing. We've been very specific that we're looking clearly at refinancing to lower interest rates. We'll be patient in terms of reducing our debt load and using the extra cash until we have clear line of sight that our fleet is going to be fully back in operation and we feel comfortable. I'm expecting to focus on refinancing the early expensive debt.
Okay.
Okay, operator.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sorry. Finish your question, then we'll take one more, and that'll be it. Go ahead.
Thank you. With respect to the vessels that you've taken on and expect to take on, could you talk about secured borrowing capacity, if there have been changes to that, and if you expect a need for any further covenant amendments? Thank you.
The vessels that we're taking on, with each vessel, we have a committed export credit that's associated with those ships. As we take delivery of the vessels going forward, we'll use those export credits, and they are unsecured financing. The export credit agencies have been very supportive. We continue to work with them. We feel very comfortable with that financing, and it's committed in place. Our bank groups that are associated with that too have been very supportive. As far as covenant amendments, we have worked with all our bank groups, and we got multi-year covenant amendments for our agreements, and we feel good about that. If you look at the 10-Q, you'll see that with the export credit agencies, I guess they gave us covenant waivers through either August or November of 2022.
They said they were very busy with other customers, and we're now working with them to complete debt holiday two, as well as get the same covenant amendments that we got from our bank group.
Thank you so much.
One last question, operator.
We have a question from Sharon Zackfia with William Blair. Please proceed.
Hi. Thanks for letting me through again. I had a question about-
Hi. Thanks for the detail on the efficiencies you've been able to generate on the ships. I'm wondering at the corporate level, as we look at that kind of $2.4 billion from pre-pandemic annually, what do you think structurally you've taken out of that number? On marketing, which is obviously a big chunk of that $2.4 billion, have you rethought what the right level of marketing spend might be going forward?
Real quick, we're not going to give any kind of guidance in the cost at that level. In terms of our historical behavior of becoming more efficient, and certainly with this pause, we've had the opportunity, which you normally don't have, to really take a really hard look at everything because we are so reduced in terms of staff at this point in time, and then look at all of our processes, et cetera, and have time to introduce additional technologies that make us more efficient and what have you. We do see substantial contributions in terms of cost improvements across the board on the shore side.
With regards to the marketing, that's evolving on its own anyway in terms of what the most powerful delivery mechanism is for positioning and attracting and getting bookings and so on is just naturally evolving as society becomes increasingly digital and social media-based, et cetera. Our most powerful marketing tool has always been word of mouth because the product itself, the experience itself is so great. That's always been the most powerful marketing tool. Right now we have pent-up demand on top of that. All the repeat cruisers have gone almost a full year now without being able to cruise, and we have a huge pent-up demand there. We have a database of almost 40 million previous cruise tourists that we can access directly and so on. We'll see how all those dynamics change, whether the absolute spend will be different or it'll be reallocated.
That's all being worked at. The short answer is, we're going to come out leaner, and we're going to come out having more impact per dollar spent. There's no question about it. David, I don't know if you want to add any additional color from.
No. I think that was perfect.
Okay. Well, look, I want to thank everyone for being on. Obviously, we feel, as I said, we'll come out operationally stronger and we're excited that we're starting to sail again. We're looking forward to working things through here in the U.S. It's a very important market, obviously, for us. Extremely important. We're looking forward to giving people the opportunity to have a great experience as they do in the rest of the travel and tourism sector. Thank you so much, everyone. Appreciate it.
That does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation, and ask that you please disconnect your line. Have a great day, everyone.