Cargo

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — which together constitute the nation's busiest seaport complex — reported very different traffic numbers for April. Together, they saw only a 1.8% increase for the month compared with a year earlier. Analysts blamed the near-flat results on the slowing Chinese economy and continuing doubts about the strength of the U.S. recovery. But the Port of Los Angeles had its best April ever and its best month of the year. Imports grew 16.7% from a year earlier to 364,556 containers.

American Airlines will cut 1,200 airport baggage and cargo jobs and close an Arizona reservations center under a bankruptcy restructuring plan to trim annual labor spending by $1.25 billion. All the carrier's jobs at airports in Ontario, six other U.S. cities and two cities in Canada will be outsourced. AMR Corp.'s American detailed changes for nonunion workers 11 weeks after telling other workers it would do away with 13,000 of their jobs, freeze pensions and make work-rule and benefit changes.

A surge in cargo traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has officials hoping that the U.S. economic recovery is gaining strength despite worrisome signs overseas. Combined, the neighboring ports handled more than 1.1 million cargo containers last month, an increase of 9.8% compared with March 2011. Much of the strength came from strong growth in imports, which were up a combined 12.8% for both ports compared with the same month last year. "Hopefully, it means that importers are starting to replenish their inventories" because they think that U.S. consumers will be in a buying mood, said Art Wong, spokesman for the Port of Long Beach.

Wayne M. Hoffman, the retired chairman of Tiger International, the Century City-based parent company of the Flying Tiger Line, which was once the world's largest air cargo carrier, has died. He was 89. Hoffman died Saturday of natural causes at his home in Indian Wells, said Nissen Davis, a family friend. A former railroad attorney who rose to become executive vice president of the New York Central Railroad, Hoffman was recruited to become chairman of the Flying Tiger Line in 1967.

Worldwide Aeros Corp., the Montebello developer and maker of blimps used for surveillance, advertising and transport, opened a 45,000-square-foot engineering facility to house work underway on a mammoth 66-ton rigid airship. The company is expanding in part to build the blimp-like aircraft, which would travel at about 120 mph and could take off and land vertically. The idea is that the airship will ferry multi-ton cargo loads back and forth for the military. The new facility, adjacent to Aeros' headquarters and dubbed the Center of Innovation, opened Tuesday in a ceremony attended by state politicians.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach saw more of a decline in cargo traffic in February than other ports around the nation, perhaps proving there is one month out of the year in which there's little advantage in having China as a primary trading partner. That's because of the annual Chinese New Year celebration. Chinese factories traditionally close for the celebration for a week or more. This year, the factory slowdown hit trade traffic in February. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the busiest U.S. seaport complex, move 40% of the nation's Asian imports, and most of that comes from China.

The nation's busiest seaport complex had a down month for cargo statistics in February compared with a year earlier, but officials blamed it in part on an early Chinese New Year's celebration that idled factories in that nation. Combined, for example, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach moved a total of 445,835 cargo containers carrying imported goods last month. That was a decline of 12.5% from a year earlier. Chinese factories traditionally close for the celebration for a week of more, said Art Wong, a spokesman for the Long Beach port.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, long the nation's dominant shipping harbors, lost a bit of market share to East Coast docks this year. The nation's two top ports expect to end this year on a slightly sour note, moving 200,000 fewer cargo containers than last year at a time when total trade at the nation's 10 biggest harbors has grown by about the same amount. A key reason for the slower activity has been that India and Singapore are becoming major shipping hubs, and routes there favor the East Coast, especially the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and the fast-growing Savannah, Ga., port.

Thick, tarry fuel oil disgorged into San Francisco Bay from a damaged cargo ship in 2007 was surprisingly toxic to fish embryos, devastating the herring population that feeds seabirds, whales and the bay's last commercial fishery, scientists reported Monday. Although the bay's herring spawning grounds are now free of toxic oil, studies have found that the moderate-size spill of 54,000 gallons had an unexpectedly large and lethal effect. The culprit, a common type of ship fuel called "bunker fuel," appears to be especially toxic to fish embryos, particularly when exposed to sunlight, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Plans for the world's largest airplane powered by six jumbo jet engines were unveiled by Seattle billionaire and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen as part of a new commercial space venture that plans to send satellites, cargo and tourists into Earth orbit aboard a rocket ship. The new company, Stratolaunch Systems Inc., said Tuesday that it expects to bring "airport-like operations to the launch of commercial and government payloads and, eventually, human missions. " Allen, 58, wants to see the first flight within five years and declined to say how much the venture will cost, but he made clear that the program needs to move quickly now that NASA's fleet of space shuttles has been retired.