Buzz on the floor today is after leaders from major European shipyards heavily criticized the Mitsubishi deal with AIDA. They claimed that that the pricing model of the AIDA ship is “unstable”.
Corrado Antonini, Fincantieri chairman
Mitsubishi has come up with a price per lower berth that no other builder could match. [Mitsubishi is]10 years out of the market. How could they come up with that price? Costs in Japan are not that much less than in Europe, and a lot of their components are being sourced in Europe.
Eero Makinen, svp marketing at STX Finland
If the series goes to five ships they will be facing a total loss of up to €500m. It is an unbelievable figure and it can’t really be understood even as an entry fee for this sector.
Sounds to me like they’re scared of Asia. Shipyards world wide are struggling to fill order books right now. The offshore industry is helping to fill some of Asia’s yards but not all. With the unstable EU, now is the perfect time for Asia to make a big play in the cruise industry.