Carnival Corp has reached a fourth-quarter record for customer deposits on future cruises, but the cruise juggernaut is still deep into the loss column because of Covid-19’s financial impact. The New York-listed owner of 95 cruise ships has collected $5.1bn in deposits for the final quarter of its fiscal year, beating the fourth-quarter record of $4.9bn set in 2019 before the pandemic. “Booking volumes strengthened following the relaxation in protocols, cancellation trends are improving globally, and we have seen a measurable lengthening in the booking curve, across all brands,” chief executive Josh Weinstein said in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report released on Wednesday.

But Miami-based Carnival is still feeling financial pain from Covid-19, posted a $1.6bn net loss for the last three months of its 2022 fiscal year, which ended 30 November. That marks its 10th consecutive quarter of billion-dollar losses, though it is lower than the $2.62bn in red ink during the same quarter in fiscal 2021. On an adjusted basis, the shipowner reported a $1.07bn loss for the fiscal fourth quarter, which is down from a $1.96bn loss a year earlier. And Carnival recorded an adjusted loss per share of $0.85, beating analyst consensus of $0.87 and improving upon the year-ago result of $1.72.

Fourth-quarter revenue came in at $3.84bn, almost triple the revenue collected a year ago but 20% short of revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter of 2019, before the pandemic struck. Bunker costs more than doubled to $580m during the quarter from $282m a year earlier because of higher fuel prices, but the company is trying to offset that cost with air bubbles. TradeWinds reported in early November that the owner unveiled plans to have air lubrication systems on 17 ships, having already installed them on the hulls of seven vessels. Carnival concluded the fourth quarter with $8.6bn of liquidity versus $9.3bn of liquidity at the same time last year, but its long-term debt totaled $32bn, up from $28.5bn a year ago. The company posted a $6.09bn net loss for the first nine months of 2022 versus a $9.5bn net loss a year earlier. Revenue reached $12.2bn for the period, up from $1.91bn during the same timeframe in 2021.