P&O Cruises is presently owned by Carnival Company & plc, however that wasn’t all the time the case. The British cruise line boasts a wealthy historical past and, in actual fact, P&O Cruises is among the oldest working cruise strains on this planet.
Right here’s what you’ll want to know concerning the cruise line, the way it differs from P&O Ferries, and the destiny of P&O Cruises Australia.
In This Article:
What’s P&O Cruises?
P&O Cruises is a Southampton, England-based cruise line that presently operates seven ships, crusing to greater than 300 locations throughout the globe. Nearly all of the family-friendly cruise line’s ships sail out of Southampton, and P&O is the most important cruise line in Nice Britain.
The Historical past of P&O Cruises
The Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Firm was initially primarily a delivery firm. They traveled from Britain to the European mainland, in addition to to Australia, starting in 1852, when the corporate landed a contract to take mail to the colony.
Nevertheless, within the 1840s, the corporate set sail from London to the Mediterranean, providing passengers the corporate’s very first leisure crusing.
The expansion of the corporate’s leisure crusing division — which quickly gained its personal title, P&O Cruises — was sluggish, although.
The cruise line didn’t even fee its first new-build ship till 1995, at which level it revamped its ships to supply the trendy eating, leisure and facilities cruisers have been starting to anticipate.
Nonetheless, in 1974, The Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Firm had bought Princess Cruises, and, so, in 2000, when The Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Firm de-merged its cruising operations, P&O Princess Worldwide was shaped.
In 2003, P&O Princess Worldwide would come along with Carnival to kind Carnival Company & plc. In the meantime, The Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Firm was overtaken by Dubai Ports World within the mid-2000s.
Who Owns P&O Cruises Immediately?
P&O’s dad or mum firm is presently Carnival Company & plc.
As of 2003, Carnival Company and P&O Princess Cruises mixed to create a worldwide cruising firm that might due to this fact be referred to as Carnival Company & plc.
Together with P&O Cruises, the enterprise determination introduced a variety of different cruise line manufacturers beneath the Carnival Company & plc umbrella, too, together with Princess Cruises, AIDA Cruises and P&O Cruises Australia.
By that time limit, Carnival Company had already acquired majority or full stakes in different strains comparable to Cunard Line, Seabourn Cruise Line, Costa Cruises and Holland America Line.
As such, right now, Carnival Company & plc is the world’s largest cruise firm, with greater than 90 ships in its fleet, serving tons of of hundreds of friends at any given second and claiming roughly 40% of the worldwide cruising market.
Who Leads P&O Cruises?
There are numerous well-seasoned people on the helm of P&O Cruises, who’ve formed the cruise line’s legacy into what it’s right now, together with Paul Ludlow, who acts because the president of each P&O Cruises and Carnival UK.
Ludlow has labored with P&O Cruises for greater than 20 years, in gross sales and management roles. Over the course of his profession, he’s two LNG-powered, Excel-class ships to the cruise line.
He additionally established Princess Cruises in the UK, making the nation the cruise line’s second-largest market after america.
Ludlow took the function over in 2023, from Sture Myrmell. Myrmell was the Carnival UK president from 2021 to 2023, however was beforehand the president of P&O Australia and Carnival Australia. Following his departure from P&O Cruises and Carnival UK, Myrmell went on to take a task as COO at Journey Past in 2024.
Who’s the CEO of P&O Cruises?
P&O Cruises doesn’t have its personal CEO. As an alternative, Paul Ludlow’s boss, Josh Weinstein fills the function of CEO overseeing all of Carnival plc.
Weinstein has greater than twenty years of expertise inside the firm, together with as treasurer, president and COO, earlier than turning into CEO in 2022, the place he used his experience to help the cruise strains in bouncing again from the industry-halting Covid-19 pandemic.
Earlier than Weinstein, Arnold Donald was the CEO for the company, a task he held for 9 years. After Weinstein took over, Donald grew to become the company’s vice chair.
Previous to appearing as Carnival Corp’s CEO, Donald was a extremely profitable businessman, with expertise within the agrochemical area. In truth, Donald had already retired, resting on his laurels (he’d bought a basketball crew and all the things!) — however then he was referred to as to grow to be the very first Black CEO of a significant cruise firm.
A lot as was the case when Weinstein took the function, Donald got here onto the scene throughout a time of {industry} uncertainty, shortly after the Costa Concordia sinking, however Donald managed to extend the Carnival Corp’s profitability, variety, sustainability and extra.
Earlier than Donald, Micky Arison stuffed the CEO spot between 1979 and 2013. Arison is chargeable for taking the corporate public on the NYSE in New York, in addition to increasing the company’s bevy of cruise strains till Carnival Cruise Line remodeled into Carnival Company & plc.
Micky Arison’s father, Ted Arison, based Carnival in 1972.
The Confusion Between P&O Ferries and P&O Cruises
P&O Ferries and P&O Cruises have been as soon as each beneath the Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Firm umbrella.
Nevertheless, The Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Firm retained P&O Ferries even after P&O Cruises spun off to Carnival Corp. As such, when Dubai Ports World (DP World) took over The Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Firm, it gained P&O Ferries.
P&O Ferries continues to be in operation and gives ferry service between the UK and France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Northern Eire and Scotland. Nevertheless, the 2 are presently utterly separate functioning corporations.
Sadly, this isn’t frequent data and it’s resulted in some PR snafus. For instance, in 2022, P&O Ferries got here below hearth for its sudden shedding of almost a thousand staff.
In response, indignant customers referred to as for P&O boycotts — however they didn’t understand that P&O Ferries and P&O Cruises have been two separate entities, main some to say that we must always boycott P&O Cruises, too.
Consequently, P&O Cruises needed to make an official assertion that they weren’t linked to the ferry firm in any respect.
Are P&O Cruises Australia and P&O Cruises the Identical Factor?
P&O Australia was the Australian department of the unique P&O Cruises, launching in 1932 with an inaugural cruise from Sydney.
The department’s ships served varied different features past leisure cruising over the a long time, together with transporting expats from the UK to Australia, in addition to serving in wartime. Nevertheless, by the Eighties, P&O Cruises established everlasting cruise ship service in Australia.
Learn Additionally: Who Owns Carnival Cruise Line?
When P&O Cruises merged with Carnival Corp, P&O Cruises Australia went together with the deal, however in June 2024, Carnival Corp introduced that it could be phasing out the P&O Cruises Australia model.
In its stead, Carnival Cruise Line ships would serve its itineraries, with the P&O Cruises Australia ships both rebranding below Carnival Cruise Line or being offered off to different strains.
Who Owns P&O Cruises and Why Individuals Get Confused
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