Yellow loss doubles in Q1; ABF, Saia hold steady in softer freight environment

Yellow Corp. officials blamed the “soft” freight environment nationally for a doubling of their first quarter loss, compared with year-ago results, in its recent first quarter earnings announcement. 

Yellow, which controls about 10% of the $58 billion less-than-truckload (LTL) market, suffered a first quarter loss of $54.6 million on revenue of $1.159 billion. That was nearly twice the loss of $27.5 million on $1.26 billion revenue in the year-ago period.

Yellow’s operating loss was $9.3 million in the first quarter. That compared with operating income of $9.2 million in the 2022 first quarter, which included a $5.5 million net gain on property disposals.

“The soft demand environment during the first quarter was similar to the slowing pace we experienced late last year,” Yellow CEO Darren Hawkins said in a statement.

Moreover, freight demand did not pick up toward the second half of the first quarter, as it usually does in the LTL sector.

“The daily shipment count remained steady from January through March without the typical seasonal uplift in demand in the second half of the quarter,” Hawkins said.

However, Hawkins said year-over-year pricing continued to improve despite following exceptionally strong growth a year ago.

Also, Yellow officials were optimistic about their network optimization, called One Yellow, which will combine long-haul operations with regional freight in an ambitious restructuring. It has been delayed by negotiations with the Teamsters union, which is trying to minimize job relocations and other factors. But Hawkins is optimistic long-term.

“We do believe there’s a tremendous growth opportunity on the other side of One Yellow,” Hawkins said on a conference call with analysts. “While we’re getting there, I like the responsiveness and the loyalty of the customers that we have. They’ve continued to give us a large number of shipments on a daily basis.”

ArcBest Corp., parent of the nation’s sixth-largest LTL, ABF Freight System, enjoyed a first-quarter profit of $71.3 million, up 2.4% from $65.6 million in the same quarter a year ago.

But most of that came from a $100 million sale of FleetNet America, its maintenance division, to Cox Automotive Mobility Solutions Inc. of Atlanta. ArcBest said it cleared $51.4 million from the sale.

Revenue in the quarter was $1.1 billion, down from $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2022. ABF Freight, the company’s asset-based division, reported an 8.8% increase, from 1.2 million to 1.3 million, in quarterly shipments but that was offset by an 8.5% drop in revenue per shipment from $578.80 to $529.43.

ArcBest noted the smaller shipments were due to “softness in the general economy.”

Saia, the nation’s ninth-largest LTL, saw earnings drop to on revenue of $660.5 million in the first quarter from $661.2 million in the year-ago period. Saia net income was $76.9 million in the quarter, roughly the same as the $79.4 million it earning in the year-ago quarter.

Saia Executive Vice President and CFO Douglas Col cited “solid pricing efforts” and a 1.8% increase in weight per shipment in the quarter that drove a 6.3% increase in revenue per shipment excluding fuel surcharge. 

“The efforts around pricing and business mix shift led to total revenue being essentially flat year-over-year despite the 7.1% decrease in shipments per day,” Col said in a statement.