Virgin Cruises plans to launch in early 2020

MIAMI — British billionaire Richard Branson’s latest travel venture — Virgin Cruises — plans to set sail in early 2020.

Virgin Cruises CEO Tom McAlpin announced Tuesday that the cruise line has signed a letter of intent with the Fincantieri shipyard in Italy to build three ships with room for more than 2,800 passengers each.

Estimated delivery dates are early 2020, 2021 and 2022. The first one will be based at PortMiami.

“Port of Miami is perfect for our ship,” McAlpin said during a news conference.

The ships — midsize ships weighing in at 110,000 gross tons — will have 1,430 cabins.

Virgin Group, which has ties to the airline and space travel industry, announced in December that it was partnering with private investment firm Bain Capital on the new cruise venture.

After that announcement, a lawsuit was filed in March in Miami federal court on behalf of Colin Veitch and his VSM Development firm, seeking more than $300 million in damages against Branson and Virgin Group and other court actions.

The lawsuit by Veitch — a former CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line — alleged that Branson and his company stole his ideas and business plans to enter the luxury cruise industry by building two state-of-the-art ships capable of accommodating 4,200 passengers each.

A decision on the litigation is still pending.

Before being tapped to lead Virgin Cruises, McAlpin was president and CEO of The World, Residences at Sea, based in Fort Lauderdale. He’d also served as president of Orlando area-based Disney Cruise Line.