As Disney Cruise Line prepares to replace its two original ships in the lucrative Florida market, local officials are working to lure the vessels to Southern California.
The Port of Los Angeles is in talks with the cruise arm of Walt Disney Co. to home-port the two ships in San Pedro after they are pulled out of Florida within the next couple of years.
Disney Cruise Line, based in Kissimmee, Fla., plans on replacing the vessels Disney Magic and Disney Wonder with two larger ships, which are under construction.
At a recent meeting, Chris Chase, the port’s marketing director, said the Burbank media and entertainment company has been reluctant to negotiate a relocation plan for the ships. But the port hopes the company would want to bolster its local presence since its Disneyland theme park is in Anaheim.
“We’d love to have Disney Cruises become a permanent fixture of the San Pedro waterfront,” Chase said in an e-mail statement.
Disney Cruise Line did not return calls for comment. But next month, the company plans to bring the Disney Magic to Los Angeles for a three-month stint, offering 12 Mexican Riviera cruises.
The Magic was Disney’s first foray into the cruise business, entering operation in 1998, with the Wonder following one year later. The nearly identical ships, with 850 staterooms, were the first in the cruise industry designed to appeal to families.
Getting the ships in L.A. permanently could help offset some of the passenger losses expected in October when Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. pulls its Monarch of the Seas ship out of the port. Currently, that ship carries about 440,000 passengers annually from Los Angeles and is what Chase called “the bread and butter of our cruise business.”
In addition to those efforts, port representatives have been lobbying the Department of Homeland Security to nix a proposal that would upend the L.A.-to-Hawaii cruise market. The government is looking to require those cruises to spend a greater amount of time in foreign ports, which would drive up costs.
The port also is putting finishing touches on a plan to build two cruise terminals in the outer harbor area. Currently, the port’s cruise terminals are difficult to access for many of the largest ships being built today. The outer harbor location would allow large ships to dock more easily, and it would help the port capture a greater share of the growing cruise business.
Night Flights
A proposal to shift nighttime flights from Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport to the general aviation hub in Van Nuys could get grounded before it takes off.
In addition to Van Nuys community activists who have already begun voicing displeasure with the proposal, the airport itself has a voluntary curfew limiting overnight flights and officials have been looking to completely eliminate those operations.
Indeed, a litany of lengthy studies, lawsuits and community complaints would likely derail any effort to transfer the flights, said Jack Keady, a transportation analyst in Playa del Rey.
“The odds of this happening are about as high as the odds of the Titanic being raised,” he said.
The proposal was made by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which is under pressure from Burbank residents to reduce nighttime noise and has proposed a ban on nighttime operations. About 16 private and business jets fly into Burbank between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. each day.
Officials at Van Nuys Airport, the world’s busiest general aviation airport, declined to comment on the proposal. But one person with knowledge of the situation said Los Angeles World Airports, which owns the general aviation airport, was working in earnest on a similar proposal to ban nighttime flights from Van Nuys.
Executive Hire
Santa Monica-based Miles Electric Vehicles has announced the appointment of Kevin Czinger as chief executive.
Czinger previously served in a senior management position with Goldman Sachs.
Miles Electric Vehicles is a manufacturer of environmentally friendly cars founded in 2005 by entrepreneur Miles Rubin. The company has built fleet vehicles for customers such as UCLA and the U.S. Navy.
The company recently received a $15 million investment that it will use to bring the Miles XS500 to market. The vehicle is an electrically powered sedan with a top speed of 80 miles per hour and a range of 120 miles.
Clean Fleet
The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners this month approved a $5.4 million deal to purchase electric yard hostlers and trucks in the latest move to reduce the environmental impact of port operations.
Under the deal, the port will purchase 20 yard hostlers essentially off-road trucks and five on-road electric trucks from Pico Rivera-based Balqon Corp.
The vehicles are expected to be delivered within the next nine months.
Staff reporter Richard Clough can be reached at
[email protected]
or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 251.
