Keel-laying of AIDAnova at Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg

By laying AIDAnova’s keel, Carnival Corporation marked the official start of construction for a total of seven cruise ships that will be fully powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG).

German shipbuilder Meyer Werft lowered the first building block into place for AIDAnova, the first cruise ship worldwide that can be operated both at sea and in port with low-emission LNG. In the presence of AIDA President Felix Eichhorn, Bernard Meyer, CEO of Meyer Werft, and Tim Meyer, CEO of Meyer Werft, two trainees named Louisa Tröbner (AIDA Cruises) and Martin de Boer (Meyer Werft) placed the traditional lucky coin under the first of a total of 90 blocks.

AIDA President Felix Eichhorn: “One of the main tasks AIDA Cruises sets itself is to make cruises sustainable. With AIDAnova and its sister ship, we are sticking to this course with our pioneering work. Thanks to our trailblazing “green cruising” design, the use of only LNG in the cruise industry will become a reality in 2018.”

“We thank Carnival Corporation and AIDA Cruises very much for their trust and their pioneering decision to implement LNG technology on board. The corresponding infrastructure is now being developed at numerous ports. Carnival has made a decision benefiting the environment that is highly important for the cruise industry,” says Bernard Meyer, CEO of Meyer Werft.

With the keel-laying of AIDAnova on September 6, 2017, Carnival Corporation & plc, marked the official start of construction for a total of seven next-generation cruise ships that will be fully-powered by LNG for four of the ten cruise ship brands owned by the world’s largest leisure travel company.

Arnold Donald, president and CEO of Carnival Corporation, together with Bernard Meyer, CEO Meyer Werft, Michael Thamm, CEO Costa Group and Carnival Asia, David Dingle, Chairman Carnival UK (P&O Cruises UK), Neil Palomba, President of Costa Cruises, and Felix Eichhorn, President of AIDA Cruises, – gave the official “full steam ahead” signal, ringing in a new era of the commercial use of low-emission LNG in cruise travel. The seven LNG ships for cruise brands Carnival Cruise Lines, Costa Cruises, Carnival UK, and AIDA Cruises will be built by Meyer Werft in Papenburg (Germany) and Turku (Finland) and commissioned between 2018 and 2022.

AIDAnova is the world’s first cruise ship that will be operated both in port and at sea with the currently most environmentally friendly and lowest-emission fossil fuel – thanks to four dual-fuel engines – starting in fall 2018.

In AIDAnova’s premiere season, AIDA Cruises will offer trips around the Canary islands starting in December 2018. Its twin ship with over 180,000 GT and 2,600 staterooms is set to be commissioned in the spring of 2021. Using LNG prevents almost completely particulate matter and sulfur dioxide emission completely, while sustainably reducing nitric oxide and CO2 emissions.

Thanks to their dual-fuel engines, AIDAprima and AIDAperla are the world’s first cruise ships which can produce their energy from low-emission LNG while docked in port. This is an important step in improving air quality, because the average cruise ship spends 40 percent of its operating time in port. The requirement for this is the availability of LNG in the respective ports. In Hamburg, Rotterdam, Le Havre, Southampton, and Zeebrügge, AIDAprima can already today be operated with LNG while docked. Together with its partners, AIDA Cruises is working to make the technology available in even more ports in Europe.

All AIDAnova cruises can be booked at travel agencies, with the AIDA Customer Center at +49 (0)381/202 707 07, or at www.aida.de. More information and impressions are available at aida.de/genaumeinurlaub.