Leaner and meaner
Several tough years position leading carriers for profitability
Only 14 CCJ Top 250 carriers posted revenue gains in 2009.
Click here for a copy of the 2010 CCJ Top 250 as a PDF.
Years don’t get worse than 2009 for the trucking industry. Revenues for the carriers in the CCJ Top 250 that reported those figures were down more than 18 percent from 2008. Excluding package giants UPS and FedEx, whose vast scope can distort the performance of the trucking industry as a whole, revenues plunged more than 22 percent.
Lower revenues naturally have meant smaller fleets. Excluding UPS and FedEx, the number of power units reported for the 2010 CCJ Top 250 are down more than 6 percent from the 2009 ranking. And with lower utilization and trucks parked for lack of freight, the driver force is down nearly 10 percent. This follows declines of a similar magnitude reported by carriers in the 2009 CCJ Top 250 ranking.
The upside of all of this pain is that trucking companies are leaner and poised for profits as the economy recovers. Reports in July from publicly traded trucking companies show this to be the case.
Down but not out
Given that the average carrier in the CCJ Top 250 saw revenues drop by more than 20 percent in 2009, you might expect quite a few to go under. But in fact, only three carriers in the 2009 CCJ Top 250 no longer are operating. The largest of those – and the most publicized as well – was Tulsa, Okla.-based Arrow Trucking Co., which was forced to shut down a few days before Christmas last year.
Arrow Trucking’s failure wasn’t the only one to lead to litigation, however. In January, the Department of Labor sued the owners of Aurora, Ill.-based Mid-States Express, which was No. 210 in the 2009 CCJ Top 250, for allegedly failing to protect the interests of the participants and beneficiaries in the company’s 401(k) and health plans. Finally, Sitton Motor Lines, No. 239 in the 2009 ranking, ceased operations in a more orderly fashion in November 2009.
Only 14 CCJ Top 250 Carriers posted revenue gains in 2009.
