zoomImage Courtesy: AIDA Cruises

Miami-based cruise company Carnival Corporation has held a keel-laying ceremony of the first ship of its new liquefied natural gas (LNG) generation, AIDAnova, which will be delivered by Meyer Werft Papenburg in fall 2018.

The 180,000 gross ton AIDAnova, which will be the 13th member in AIDA’s fleet, will be traveling Madeira and the Canary Islands for seven-day cruises from December 2018 in its first season. German cruise line AIDA Cruises ordered the ship in summer 2015, as part of a deal for two next-generation cruise ships.

With the ceremony, held at Seatrade Europe in Hamburg, the company officially launched the construction of its seven next-generation cruise ships that will be fully-powered by LNG.

“Today marked a significant milestone in the construction of this next-generation of Carnival Corporation ships featuring our ‘green cruising’ design, which will be the most environmentally friendly ships in our company’s history,” Arnold Donald, president and CEO of Carnival Corporation, said.

Pioneering a new era in the use of low-carbon fuels, these new ships will be the first in the cruise industry that can use LNG to generate 100 percent of their power both in port and on the open sea. The ships, with delivery dates between 2018 and 2022, will be built by leading German and Finnish shipbuilders Meyer Werft and Meyer Turku.

Following the introduction of AIDAnova in 2018, Carnival Corporation’s Costa Cruises brand will debut the industry’s next cruise ship that can be powered completely by LNG on the open seas in 2019 – the first steel-cutting ceremony for this ship is scheduled at the Meyer Turku shipyard in the coming week.

LNG-powered ships for Carnival Cruise Line and P&O Cruises (UK) will follow in 2020. Costa Cruises and AIDA Cruises will each receive an additional LNG-powered ship in 2021, followed by an additional LNG-powered ship for Carnival Cruise Line in 2022.