Jan. 6--South Florida seaports showed mixed results in their fiscal 2006 performance, with cargo volume slipping at the Port of Miami and growing at Port Everglades amid a thriving industry, according to recently obtained data.

The Port of Miami lost $6 million on $88.1 million in revenue during the year that ended Sept. 30, 2006. While the cruise ship capital of the world gained more passengers, it lost cargo tonnage to competing ports.

Cruise passenger traffic rose 3.5 percent to 3.7 million. Yet cargo volume dropped 8.6 percent in fiscal 2006 to 8.7 million tons, from a record 9.5 million tons in fiscal 2005. In fiscal 2005, the port broke even on $85 million in revenue.

Port Director Bill Johnson, who took over the Port of Miami in June, said the facility has lost cargo business from companies including Maersk and Hamburg Sud to other ports in the region and on the East Coast that offered deeper discounts.

The port also suffered from a perception that it was already at capacity and was not operating efficiently due to congestion, he said. A stronger marketing push and new security gates that are geared to reduce delays and that are planned to be operational in March should help alleviate that problem, Johnson said.

"The trick for us for the current year, 2007, is improvement in the cargo area," he said. "And I think there are opportunities for that, and I fully expect us to operate in the black, very efficiently, very soon."

The Port of Miami's results are in stark contrast with the industry's performance nationwide, as ports benefit from flourishing trade.

U.S. ports' cargo volumes have risen 5 to 8 percent each year for the past several years, said Aaron Ellis, spokesman for the American Association of Port Authorities, which represents 160 public port authorities in the western hemisphere, including 85 in the United States.

"Cargo volumes are continuing a dramatic increase every year, so there has not been a year in recent history where we've seen a general downtrend," Ellis said. "It's always stepping up -- and at a rapid pace."

In Broward, Port Everglades reported a fiscal 2006 profit of $9.3 million on $107.6 million in revenue. That compares to a profit of $9.4 million on $105.9 million of revenue in fiscal 2005.

Container cargo jumped 12.1 percent to 5.7 million tons in fiscal 2006 from 5.1 million tons the previous fiscal year. It was the port's second year of double-digit growth in container cargo.

Total TEUs (20-foot equivalent units, a size of a standard shipping container) rose 8.4 percent to 864,030 in fiscal 2006, from 797,238 in fiscal 2005.

"The cargo side continues really to boom," said Carlos Buqueras, director of business development for Port Everglades.

Port Everglades' higher cargo volume reflects added routes and/or capacity from three companies: Maersk, Crowley and King Ocean, Buqueras said.

In 2006, Maersk relocated its route between Florida and Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras to Port Everglades from Miami and created a route from Guatemala to Port Everglades, he said.

Crowley expanded its capacity from Port Everglades to Guatemala by adding a ship. King Ocean also added more capacity, Buqueras said.

Yet at the same time, the port's cruise passenger volume dropped, by 14.8 percent, to 3.2 million.

Single-day cruise passengers fell 30 percent from 1.1 million in fiscal 2005 to 779,470 in fiscal 2006, reflecting the first full fiscal year since the demise of St. Tropez Casino Cruises. The twice-daily excursion ceased operations in May 2005.

Port Everglades' multiday cruise passengers also dropped 8.5 percent to 2.5 million from 2.7 million in fiscal 2005. That was primarily due to the itinerary changes of three ships, which were redeployed to other ports worldwide, Buqueras said.

Celebrity's Century docked at Port Everglades 10 fewer times in fiscal 2006 than fiscal 2005, Cunard's Queen Mary 2 did not make any calls during the 2006 fiscal year, and Holland America's Zuiderdam had 24 fewer sailings, he said.

Nationwide, the number of passengers boarding cruise ships home-ported in North America has been increasing at a rapid pace, even faster than cargo volume, Ellis said.

Figures are not yet in for 2006, but data from the Cruise Lines International Association shows cruise passenger volume was up 6.9 percent in 2005 and has risen an average of 7.6 percent from 1980 to 2005.

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