Less-than-truckload freight flows continue to be redistributed following the shutdown of carrier Yellow Corp. Saia Inc. said Tuesday after the market closed that shipments per day were up 13% year over year (y/y) through the first two weeks of August.
The update followed a 6% y/y increase in shipments during July, the first month in which Yellow’s (NASDAQ: YELL) troubles resulted in a material diversion of freight from its network. By comparison, Saia’s shipments were down 4% y/y in the second quarter.
Saia’s (NASDAQ: SAIA) daily tonnage was up a little more than 3% y/y in July and has increased by 6% so far in August. Weight per shipment was down 2% and 6% in both periods, respectively.
The update comes ahead of management’s appearance with investors Wednesday at Deutsche Bank’s (NYSE: DB) annual transportation conference.
During the second-quarter earnings season, all LTL carriers noted some impact from the fallout at Yellow, with two remaining union carriers reporting the largest increases. On average, most carriers saw shipment counts increase by 3,000 from the beginning to the end of July.
| Recent updates from carriers | |
| ABF Freight | 10% increase in shipments at core accounts (week leading into July 28 report) |
| Forward Air | 7% y/y increase in tonnage (days leading into Aug. 2 report) |
| Old Dominion | 6% increase in shipments (from beginning to end of July) |
| Saia | 13% y/y increase in shipments (first two weeks of August) |
| XPO | 9% y/y increase in shipments (full month of July) |
| TForce | 13% increase in shipments (from beginning to end of July) |
TForce Freight, a TFI International (NYSE: TFII) company, said shipments jumped 13% from the beginning to the end of the month. The carrier also saw a 4% increase in revenue per shipment over that stretch. ABF Freight, an ArcBest (NASDAQ: ARCB) subsidiary, reported a 10% increase in shipments from its core accounts in its latest week reported.
Nonunion carrier XPO (NYSE: XPO) said it would likely bolster network capacity to meet the increased demand. It reported a 9% y/y increase in shipments for the full month of July.
Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ: ODFL) reported a 6% increase in shipments in the week leading up to its report, and asset-light provider Forward Air (NASDAQ: FWRD) said tonnage increased 7% y/y in the days leading up to its second-quarter call.
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David Nebenfuhr
Riley’s lengthy dissertation is inaccurate.
“One Yellow ” West Coast change of opera-
tions was successful and further more, being unionized there was no attempt to transfer employees from “central states ” or as he states mid west to the west coast. By union contractual policies that is/was not allowed. Political motivation, I feel was a factor by O’brien as Trump ok’ed the government loan and Teamsters back the Democrats. As a result 22000 teamsters are unemployed and no longer pay union dues. Shame on O’Brien for his reckless abandonment of a 99 year old company as it can identify with auto icons Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Mercury, Plymouth. Any individual with a mind of logic should adhere to this post.
riley
just goes to show you, how poorly mismanage Yellow freight was. Other carriers have absorbed Yellow freight (shipments) without any disruption in the logistic (supply chain) network. Yellow freight irresponsible use of a metric systems (no matter – the amount of pickup and deliveries – only send one driver to an area) and the mismanage of loads, employee give-backs lead to this company downfall/bankruptcy. Yellow had enough freight revenue to survive, but they where to greedy and wanted employee give-backs. USF Holland freight had tried utility-drivers doing the years of 2012-2015 and found out there was no great saving in wages and return back to normal line-haul and city drivers positions. One-Yellow was only (simply) about cutting employee benefits nothing less. One-Yellow west was a complete failure – many company mid-west employees where sent to the west coast to keep the logistic systems current.
Zud
Does not look to be capacity issue with this spread. My thinking most large shippers had two or more LTL carriers having trailers in the doors but Yellow’s trailers are gone.