The cruise industry will take four years to recover from the pandemic and return to the level of prosperity it saw in 2019, according to investment bank UBS.
The entire sector has suffered billions of dollars in losses since the virus forced mass fleet lay-ups amid onboard coronavirus outbreaks that began as early as February.
Arnold Donald-led Carnival Corp, the world's largest owner with 104 ships, posted a $781m first-quarter loss, while Richard Fain-led Royal Caribbean Cruises and its 62 ships lost $1.4bn.
Frank Del Rio-led Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, which has 28 vessels, recorded a $1.9bn deficit for the same period.
In comparison, the industry behemoths posted respective record profits of $336m, $250m and $118m for the first quarter of 2019.
The "Big Three" cruise majors, which account for 80% of the world's cruise market, have taken out billions of dollars in financing to survive on no revenue while their shares have plummeted by at least 70% since the beginning of 2020.
"Covid-19 impact will be substantial on the cruise industry, and we believe it could be at least four years before capacity in service and yields get back to 2019 levels," UBS analyst Robin Farley wrote in a sector outlook.
She said the industry could still benefit from some longer-term trends such as continued capacity growth, millennial demand and elevated scrapping levels.
Norwegian Cruise Line chief executive Del Rio gave a similar forecast in mid-May, saying it may take his company "multiple years" to return to 2019 profitability.
All three majors' shares saw modest gains during early afternoon trading on Wall Street on Tuesday.
Carnival's stock edged up 1.6% to $17.05 while Royal Caribbean's shares ticked up 1.5% to $56.51. Norwegian's shares gained 1.9% to $17.61.
