From SCDigest's On-Target E-Magazine
- May 21, 2014 -
Logistics News: Q1 2014 LTL Carrier Review
Old Dominion Continues to Shine, While Rates Seen Up Just 1-2% but Firming as Q1 Ended
SCDigest Editorial Staff
We're finishing up this week SCDigest's regularly quarterly review of the results and comments from leading transportation carriers by mode, this week for the less-than-truckload carriers, as the last of them finished up their Q1 2014 earnings reports in the last two weeks.
SCDigest Says: |
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| Saia was able to improve LTL pricing by 2.3% in the quarter, said CEO Rick O'Dell. |
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What Do You Say?
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Last week, we covered the US rail carriers (see Q1 2014 Rail Carrier Review) and the week before the truckload sector (see Q1 2014 Truckload Carrier Review).
Here we look at five major LTL carriers. The analysis, however, does not include either FedEx (the largest LTL provider) or UPS, because the way both report the numbers does not allow for a apples to apples comparison with the more dedicated LTL providers.
For three of the four quarters we provide results for both the just closed quarter as well as year-to-date numbers, but as nearly all carriers operate on a calendar year basis, after Q1 the quarter and year-to-date are obviously the same, so the latter is unneeded.
All told, it was a rather ho-hum quarter for the LTL sector, as YRC Worldwide continued to struggle, Old Dominion as usual blew away the field, and the carriers seemed to be able to raise rates, but modestly.
As with the truckload and rail carriers, extremely bad winter weather in much of the country in Q1 had a big impact on operations and profits, the LTL carriers said.
After briefly achieving a operating profit in 2013, YRC Worldwide had an operating loss of about $32 million in Q1, and a net loss of some $70 million. However, YRC said $20 million of the operating loss could be attributed to the bad winter weather in the quarter.
Operating ratios operating ratios (operating expanse divided by operating revenues, and key transport industry metric) were basically flat versus 2013, at 97.1%, but that number masks big differences amoung our five carrier group.
Old Dominion once again well outperformed its competitors, driving its OR down in Q1 to 87.1% from 87.8% in 2013. Conversely, YRC and ABF Freigth Systems both had operating ratios in the 102% range, meaning operating expenses were 2% more than operating revenues - not good. Conway Freight had an OR of 97.8%, while Saia managed a respectable 94.9%, but even that was more than seven percentage ppoints about the Old Dominion number.
There weren't a lot of specifics on rates, but the comments and revenue per hundredweight numbers implied rate gains of 1-2% in the quarter, on decent gains in volumes, although again here the group average is skewed by Old Dominion, which amazingly saw tonnage increase almost 14% in Q1, leading to a gain in net income of 13.2%.
The full table of results is below:
Q1 2014 LTL Carrier Results
| For Quarter Ending March 31, 2013 |
Data in $Thousands |
| Carrier |
YRC Worldwide |
Arkansas Best/ABF* |
Old Dominion |
Conway** |
Saia |
Total Carriers |
| Total Operating Rev Including Fuel |
$1,210,900 |
$577,904 |
$620,276 |
$848,027 |
$299,730 |
$3,257,107 |
| Change 2014 from 2013 |
4.2% |
11.0% |
15.2% |
2.5% |
9.5% |
6.8% |
| LTL Tonnage |
2.5% |
5.4% |
13.9% |
0.3% |
5.7% |
5.5% |
| Net Income |
-$70,200 |
-$5,193 |
$45,887 |
$18,565 |
$8,576 |
-$2,365 |
| Change 2014 from 2013 |
Had loss of $24.5 million in Q1 2013 |
Had loss of $13.3 million in Q1 2013Â |
13.2% |
15.9% |
-6.3% |
-108.5% |
| Net Income as % of Revenue 2014 (total is unweighted average) |
-5.8% |
-0.9% |
7.4% |
2.2% |
2.9% |
1.2% |
| Net Income as % of Revenue 2013 |
2.1% |
-2.6% |
7.5% |
1.9% |
3.3% |
2.5% |
| LTL Operating Ratio 2014 (total is unweighted average) |
102.7% |
102.8% |
87.1% |
97.8% |
94.9% |
97.1% |
| LTL Operating Ratio 2013 |
99.1% |
105.5% |
87.8% |
98.1% |
94.7% |
97.0% |
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| * Includes numbers from its Panther Express Unit, except for OR percents |
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| ** The Conway numbers refer only to its LTL group, not the business as a whole, which includes Menlo Logistics, a truckload business, and other units. |
| Conway Income refers to Operating Income only for LTL group, before other expensesthat would be included in full net income number as is posted for the other carriers. |
(Transportation Management Article Continued Below)
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