Carnival CEO 'very sorry' for shipwreck

MIAMI, March 10 (UPI) -- The chairman and chief executive officer of Carnival Corp., which owns Costa Cruises, said he was "very sorry" for the Costa Concordia shipwreck in Italy.

In his first interview since the Jan. 13 disaster off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Micky Arison told The Miami Herald: "Obviously, I am very sorry it happened. When you have 100 ships out there, sometimes unfortunate things happen, but as I said, it was an accident. We as a company do everything we can to encourage the highest of safety standards."

Arison said he was on the Caribbean island of St. Bart's when he learned of the accident through Twitter and immediately e-mailed Costa Cruises chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi, who was on a ship in the Caribbean at the time.

Arison said he remained in Miami to deal with Carnival's 10 cruise ship brands and to avoid becoming a "diversion" by going to Italy.

He noted Carnival Corp. vice chairman and CEO Howard Frank traveled to Italy several times since the shipwreck, which killed 25 people and left seven missing.

"I have a lot of faith in Pier and his team," Arison said. "I believe they'll work their way through this. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible accident, but that's what it was."

Arison reported Friday Carnival had a net loss of $139 million for the quarter ending Feb. 29, compared with a profit of $152 million the same period a year earlier.