Old Dominion posts stable Q3 results

The less-than-truckload carrier reported a net income of $85.6 million on revenues of $782.6 million for the third quarter of 2016, year-over-year increases of 1.4 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.    Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc.’s net income for the third quarter of 2016 inched up 1.4 percent from the third quarter of 2015 to $85.6 million despite the company facing what Old Dominion Vice Chairman and CEO David S. Congdon referred to as a “challenging economy” for the third quarter of this year.
   The Thomasville, N.C.-based less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier’s earnings per share for the quarter totaled $1.03 per share, up from $0.99 per share for the third quarter of 2015.
   Revenues for the quarter ticked up 0.4 percent year-over-year to $782.6 million. The 2.5 percent increase in LTL revenue per hundredweight offset the 1.3 percent decline in LTL tons per day and the $6.4 million drop in non-LTL revenues, Congdon explained.
   Old Dominion’s operating ratio for the quarter rose 0.3 percentage points from last year’s third quarter to 82.4 percent. Congdon said that although Old Dominion operated with a high degree of efficiency during the third quarter of this year, resulting in lower variable operating costs as a percent of revenue, this was not enough to offset the rise in depreciation associated with the company’s investments in capacity.
   Old Dominion ended the third quarter with 17,587 full-time employees. According to the company’s website, it has 226 service centers with over 6,400 tractors and more than 19,400 trailers.