Business: Navigating for a pay raise

Navigating for a pay raise

Pilots who steer ships in Tampa Bay are asking for a 20 percent pay increase. But maritime businesses are balking at the idea.

By STEVE HUETTEL, Times Staff Writer

TAMPA -- The highly skilled, and highly paid, pilots who guide ships through Tampa Bay have riled maritime businesses by requesting a hefty fee increase.

The Tampa Bay Pilots Association has asked state regulators to boost the fees its members charge vessel operators 20 percent over the next two years.

Cruise lines, cargo carriers, ship agents and Tampa's port director balked, arguing that the pilots, whose annual salaries exceed $200,000, are asking for too big of an increase when competition and higher costs already have them in a financial pinch.

Ships using the Port of Tampa and Port Manatee pay among the highest pilot fees in the state. Raising the fees higher could drive vessels to competing ports, Tampa port director George Williamson wrote in a letter to state regulators.

"This proposed increase would be a significant competitive disincentive for our port as it seeks to move forward during an historically difficult time," he wrote.

Pilots are just trying to recover increasing costs for medical insurance and other business expenses, said Steve Cropper, chairman of the pilots association.

The group usually waits four or five years to apply for a rate increase because the state demands reams of financial documents, he said. So, the proposed increase is typically a double-digit whopper, Cropper said. The last increase, in the late 1990s, was also about 20 percent.

"If we got 3 or 4 percent a year, no one would squawk," he said. "But the fact is our cost of business has gone up, and we're just trying to get it back. Nobody likes to see rate increases unless it's theirs."

Under Florida law, foreign flag vessels must hire state-certified pilots to guide them through local waters. Qualified captains of certain U.S. flag ships can navigate ship channels without pilots.

Tampa Bay is particularly tricky. The trip from beyond the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to Tampa's port is 44 miles, takes about four hours and includes sharp turns in relatively narrow channels. Pilots ride out in small, fast boats and climb ladders up the sides of the ships.

While admittedly well-compensated, Tampa Bay pilots say they earn less than counterparts in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville, where the trips are shorter and can be split between fewer pilots.

But like airline pilots earning six-figure salaries, ship pilots have trouble getting much sympathy when they argue for more money.

"Our port is facing national and international competition," said Arthur Savage of A.R. Savage & Sons, a Tampa ship agent and freight forwarder. "While everyone's working to make the port more (cost) competitive, the pilots are continually raising fees."

Pilots' fees are based on a vessel's size. For Carnival Cruise Lines' 855-foot-long Sensation, the fee is $5,150 each way. The cost is typically included in port charges passed on to customers, Carnival spokesman Tim Gallagher said.

"It's fair to say we're not overjoyed about this," he said.

For the small Cold Stream, a 460-foot refrigerated cargo ship, the fee would increase from $2,800 to $3,200 for each trip to and from Port Manatee, said Howard Posner, general manager for Seatrade, which operates the vessel.

If the fee increase is approved by the state Pilotage Rate Review Board, he said, his company might skip Manatee and persuade its main customer to send its orange juice and concentrate through Port Canaveral, where pilot fees are less.

-- Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.