Will freight volumes take flight? — #WithSONAR

How will freight volumes move through the end of the year?

https://vimeo.com/491828001

Luke Falasca and Kyle Taylor analyze how the U.S. import surge will affect truckload volumes. 

Freight volumes are seeing a slight slowdown as we move into the holiday, but U.S. imports and continued backlogs at the ports may lead to a post-Christmas surge. 

The guys talk about how the U.S. import volume is continuing to surge, once again thanks to e-commerce, and a seven-day forecast shows an expected spike in ocean imports. 

Falasca says that outbound tenders have recovered from their Thanksgiving holiday dip and should keep steady as workers stock distribution centers before Christmas. 

He also points out that tender rejections have dropped from the record highs of 28% back down to 25%, but rejections are still abnormally high. 

Taylor and Falasca pull up the U.S. imports data through SONAR to point out the second big peak happening this year. 

Falasca says it’s crucial to track imports because ocean imports “translate to truckload volumes in a matter of days, if not hours.”

Both agree 2020 has brought an unprecedented amount of freight into the country and 2021 will be no different.

They expect import values to skyrocket before Chinese New Year, and the bump will once again push up truckload volumes into the front of next year. 
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Kaylee Nix

Kaylee Nix is a meteorologist and reporter for FreightWaves. She joined the company in November of 2020 after spending two years as a broadcast meteorologist for a local television channel in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Kaylee graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2018 and immediately made the Tennessee Valley her home. Kaylee creates written summaries of FreightWaves live podcasts and cultivates the social media for FreightWaves TV.