“Pent-up demand is particularly evident for 2022 voyages,” said Frank Del Rio, president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, which operates the Norwegian, Oceania and Regent cruise brands.

Speaking on the company’s first quarter earnings call, Del Rio said that for the first half of 2022, the company’s load factor was “meaningfully ahead of 2019” with pricing higher when excluding the diluted impact of future cruise credits.

Part of that demand includes some 50 million potential cruise passengers that did not cruise in 2020 and 2021, he said, “so the pent-up demand is real and it’s deep.”

Also of note, Del Rio said  the Oceania and Regent brands reached their 50 percent load factor for 2022 over 100 days earlier than they did for the record year of 2019.

“Nearly four months (ahead), they hit their 50% load factor mark earlier than ever before and at higher prices.”

That may lead to a record year in 2022, according to Del Rio. 

“And I’ll tell you this, if we could operate given what’s on the books right now for 2020, if we can operate the itineraries that we’re actually selling, 2022 could be a record year,” he said. “That’s how good things are, but the big risk is, can we operate? Are we going to have to continue to cancel sailings because of this rolling conditional sale order, which is very difficult to comply with.”