Cruisers, shippers, Jeff Bezos see upgrades in services
There are no signs at any entrance to Broward County’s Port Everglades that say, “Service your gargantuan superyachts here.”
But when crews operating two of them belonging to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos needed dock space in November to park his 417-foot sailing yacht Koru, as well as a companion 250-foot vessel bearing “toys” suitable for a billionaire, the port ended up hosting both for roughly 10 days.
“We weren’t allowed to say anything about it,”said Jonathan Daniels, the chief executive officer/port director at Port Everglades. “We could see it from a distance.”
But news of the visit, as well as photos, went worldwide anyway.
The episode served as a fitting end point for Daniels, who after nearly four years of leading the port from the depths of the pandemic to a full-bore economic recovery is leaving South Florida early next month to take the reins of the Port of Baltimore.
That Port Everglades found temporary berths for both of Bezos’ boats is a testament to its ability to provide services that many superyacht owners can’t find anywhere else in the region, marine advocates say. And it’s a nice add-on business for a port that has seen all of its commercial sectors thriving amid inflation and an economy beset by recession fears.
“We are fielding requests because of the availability of docks,” Daniels said. “We are hearing from the Marine Industries Association of South Florida and others who want to bring in these large yachts for servicing. If we can fit that in, that’s another resource for the marine industry as a whole.”
It was the marine association that made the connection between the Bezos camp and the port, said Phil Purcell, CEO and president.
“Fort Lauderdale is the yachting capital of the world,” he said. “It makes sense. We wish there were more — 70 percent of all vessels related to the yachting industry come through Port Everglades.”
As he leaves town, Daniels can point to a port that has advanced in annual World Bank rankings of 348 ports for cargo operations performance from 116th In 2021 to 89th in 2022. It has advanced from 11th to fifth in North America in that time and is second behind Jacksonville in Florida.
“We’re seeing a return on investment is showing itself to unbiased third parties,” Daniels said. “It’s a great position to be in when you see improvement. That, to me, is very gratifying. And the (county) commission and the administration are making investments in the right locations.”
In his state-of-the-county address late last year thenMayor Lamar Fisher hailed the port and county’s other two “economic engines,” Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Visit Lauderdale, as helping to make the county “stronger than ever.”
“Port Everglades welcomed 2.88 million passengers, eight cruise lines and 35 ships in FY2023,” Fisher said. “Terminal 4 at Port Everglades has been transformed to welcome Disney Cruise Line.”
But the competition for cruise and cargo business is fierce among ports from the Gulf of Mexico to all along the Atlantic Seaboard, according to state port advocates.
A number of challenges lie ahead in the form of ports in other states seeking to poach business, something Florida has been very good at, particularly when Southern California ports were all but immobilized by huge backlogs of cargo from Asia during the pandemic.
“Texas and Georgia are about to eat Florida’s lunch,” said Edie Ousley, spokeswoman for the Tallahassee-based Florida Ports Council.
She noted that Texas recently approved “an historic” $200 million for 31 projects, more than Florida’s $135 million to $149 million annually for 14 projects.
“Georgia is expanding its Brunswick port to become the largest hub for auto imports,” she said.
“Florida needs to keep in mind what these other competitive states are doing. The only way Florida can continue to compete is through continuous strong investments.”
Since the COVID debacle, according to Mike Rubin, the council CEO and president, in “all of my seaports I’ve seen growth. I have some of the best port directors here in the state of Florida. That includes Jonathan, his leadership and advocacy.
“We’re going to miss him. Obviously that’s a benefit to the people up in Baltimore.”
During an interview Friday Daniels gave a wide-ranging appraisal of where the port stands going forward. Expansion, he said, is the byword for all of the port’s major business, whether it involves cruise lines, cargo, or energy deliveries.
A key unknown, he said, is the degree to which disruptions caused by the conflicts in the Middle East and Europe will impact commerce.
“There are some lines such as Maersk going all the way south and around South Africa,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve seen the tip of what the impact is going to be.”
Cruise menu changes
For the port, the cruise business has changed dramatically as its profile of lines serving Broward changed since COVID-19.
“We didn’t realize how quickly it would materialize and ultimately what it would do to the economy,” Daniels said. “Certainly with cruise lines it was total devastation.”
The industry, he believes, was treated “unfairly” as it was locked down and idled for 13 months. It was a period that cost the port $92 million.
“A lot of people felt the cruise industry was responsible for inventing COVID and certainly transmitting it from nation to nation across borders,” he said.
“There were so many other paths in which COVID was moving around the world.”
Now the port now has 11 lines using its facilities — a count that includes Balearia, a Spain-based ferry service that operates from the port to Bimini and Freeport, the Bahamas.
The emphasis these days is on luxury lines such as Royal Caribbean International and Carnival Corp’s Holland America and Princess lines. Disney Cruise Line inaugurated service late last year, a brand coveted by the port.
Others include Azamara Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Cunard, the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, Silverseas Cruises and Viking Cruises.
Crystal is scheduled to return to the port next year after a “long hiatus.”
“We’re seeing more long-duration cruises out of here,” Daniels said. “We’re seeing some circumnavigation cruises.”
Some last more than 100 days and call on 50 to 60 ports.
To upgrade services demanded by a largely upper-income, retired, older and more international passengers who are taking longer cruises, “we created our cruise operations division.” The unit consists of employees who ensure both passengers and companies get what they need.
“They meet on a regular basis,” Daniels said, making sure that, among other things, out-of-town cruisers get to and from the airport in a seamless fashion. On any given weekend some 50,000 people move in and out of the port each day.
Terminal expansion plans are underway with Royal Caribbean and Princess. Even now, the port has the wherewithal to host Royal Caribbean’s new Icon of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship which recently debuted at PortMiami.
The terminals could be gutted or torn down and rebuilt from scratch. But any redesign will focus on better access and movement with the help of technology.
“We all have to get better in the way we process and allow people to get off the port site,” Daniels said. “That will end up shortening port times.”
Cargo: A northsouth “stalwart”
Although the cruise business went down, the movement of cargo kept going during the pandemic, Daniels said.
“We still had the diversification of the energy sector as well as containers moving through the port,” he said. “We did not terminate a single employee during that time.”
The port is closing out a turning notch project in its Southport section to add additional berthing capacity. It also has taken delivery of six new “Super Post-Panamax” container gantry cranes as part of its $471 million project to expand its deepwater turnaround area for cargo ships.
And the port, traditionally known as a north-south facility whose traffic is focused on North and South America, has been trafficking east-west cargo with ports in Europe and beyond.
“We’ve had service from India,” Daniels said. “We are truly a stalwart and a benchmark for northsouth trade to Latin America.”
As for the latter, two more lines have opened service through the port to South America, with one “advertising connectivity into the heartland of the United States all the way up to Chicago.”
The expansion discussion inevitably led to what is probably the port’s biggest weakness.
“We are always searching for available land,” Daniels said. “It comes down to finding an acre at a time.”
That, in turn, leads to conflicts among business lines. Recently, land used for cargo was converted into parking space for cruise passengers.
On another front, the port’s long-awaited harbor deepening and widening project has leaped in cost from about $350 million in 2016 to more than $1 billion. That’s largely due to additional environmental requirements to ensure the preservation and regeneration of coral.
The forecast now is for a completion for the project in 2034.
Still, Daniels said he likes the momentum he sees across a spectrum of ongoing and future business expansion.