Port of Baltimore gaining Ford Fiestas 

Posted: 7:04 pm Wed, July 14, 2010
By Anna Isaacs
Daily Record Business Writer

Less than a month after the Port of Baltimore lost 60,000 vehicles in Kia and Hyundai shipments to Philadelphia, port officials said Wednesday that Ford would ship its Fiestas here through the rest of the year.

The news comes after an up-and-down year for roll-on/roll-off cargo at the port, which lost Hyundai’s business but also signed a five-year deal with BMW to receive 50,000 new vehicles — business it took from Charleston, S.C.

Maryland Port Administration spokesman Richard Scher declined to say when the deal with Ford was struck, but called it “great news” after the 116 layoffs at Fairfield and Masonville auto terminals from the Kia and Hyundai losses.

Scher also declined to say how many Fiestas will come through the port, but a source with knowledge of the deal said the number was 17,000.

Hyundai Motor Co.’s move of those shipments to Philadelphia was part of an effort by the company to consolidate its mid-Atlantic shipping operations to one facility.

“The maritime business is very much ebb and flow,” Scher said. “We would like to keep all business at the port forever, but it just doesn’t happen like that. … There are different reasons why certain manufactures choose various ports for their cargo, and that’s really what the business is all about.”

Ford is not a new customer to the Port of Baltimore: Baltimore receives nearly 30,000 of the 35,000 Ford Transit Connect vans imported into the U.S. annually.

While the BMW deal is generating about 200 new jobs, Scher said this latest agreement will sustain jobs rather than create them.  The Port of Baltimore has about 1,150 direct jobs from its auto business out of about 16,700 total direct jobs at the port.

“Certainly when we’re able to secure additional cars to come through the port, that is obviously a very good sign for those direct auto jobs,” he said.

In 2009, the port handled about 375,000 cars total, and the number of autos handled at the Port of Baltimore is up about 16 percent over the same time last year, according to a statement from the Maryland Port Administration.  Scher said despite the losses, the addition of the BMW vehicles and the Ford Fiestas amount to an overall success.

“We are among the top three ports in the nation for handling autos,” he said. “We feel here that in terms of autos, we have a great product to sell.”