MIAMI— Carnival Corporation has appointed former American Airlines chief communications officer Roger Frizzell to the newly created position of senior vice president of corporate communications.

The appointment comes after a difficult period for the cruise line, beginning with last year’s Costa Concordia tragedy in Italy and continuing when the Carnival Triumph suffered a breakdown that left it floating in the Gulf of Mexico without power and passengers complaining of rationed food, no showers and non-working toilets.

Frizzell will report to Carnival Corporation chairman and CEO Micky Arison and vice chairman and COO Howard Frank and will serve as chief communications officer, handling all corporate-level communications and public relations activities.

Frizzell most recently was VP and chief communications officer for Pacific Gas & Electric in San Francisco, Cal. Previously, he served as a senior public relations executive at American Airlines for nearly a decade, and held high-level communications positions at Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies and AT&T.