MIAMI — Carnival Corporation & plc is reporting strong forward bookings for the first half of 2017, at “considerably higher prices”, says the cruise company.

Since June 2016 booking volumes for the first half of next year are lower than the prior year, but only because there is less inventory remaining for sale, at significantly higher prices, according to Carnival.

The company reported US$1.4 billion in net income for the third quarter, compared to $1.2 billion in Q3 last year.

Revenues for the third quarter of 2016 were $5.1 billion, $0.2 billion higher than the $4.9 billion in the prior year.

“We delivered the strongest quarterly earnings in our company’s history affirming our ongoing efforts to expand consumer demand in excess of measured capacity increases and leverage our industry leading scale,” said Carnival Corporation & plc President and CEO Arnold Donald. “Revenues during the peak summer season were bolstered by strong performances from both our North American and European brands and across all major deployments including the Caribbean, Alaska and Europe.”

Gross revenue yields were up 0.6%, while gross cruise costs including fuel decreased 0.2%. The company expects its full year 2016 net revenue yields to rise 3.5%.

Carnival Corp. recently signed a memorandum of agreement with shipbuilders Meyer Werft and Meyer Turku for the construction of three new 180,000-ton cruise ships.  Two of the ships, to be built in Finland, will be added to the Carnival Cruise Line fleet in 2020 and 2022. The third ship, to be constructed in Germany, will join the P&O Cruises UK fleet in 2020.

In conjunction with these new ship orders, the delivery dates for two previously contracted ships, one for AIDA Cruises and one for Costa Cruises, will shift from 2020 to 2021 to ensure a measured pace of capacity growth over the coming years, says the cruise company.

“We are well on track to deliver nearly 25% earnings growth in 2016,” said Donald. “Looking forward, we are well positioned for continued earnings growth given the current strength of our booking and pricing trends in 2017.”

Carnival Corp.’s 10 cruise brands include Carnival Cruise Line, Fathom, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard, P&O Cruises (Australia) and P&O Cruises (UK). Together, these brands operate 101 ships visiting over 700 ports around the world and totalling 225,000 lower berths, with 18 new ships scheduled to be delivered between 2016 and 2022.