ODFL reports positive third quarter progress

Late last week, national less-than-truckload carrier Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL) provided guidance for key operating metrics for August.

The Thomasville, N.C.-based carrier reported that LTL tons per day increased 9.7% in August on an annual basis, which it said was driven by a 10% increase in LTL shipments per day. The 10% gain, though, was slightly offset by a 0.3% decrease in LTL weight per shipment. And on a quarter-to-date period through September 5, the company said LTL revenue per hundredweight was up 12% annually.  

“Our revenue increased more than 20% for each of the first two months of the third quarter, due to sustained strength in the domestic economy and our continued ability to win market share by delivering superior service at a fair price,” said Greg Gantt, ODFL president and CEO, in a statement. “Although the rate of our LTL volume growth thus far in the third quarter has been slightly below what we experienced during the first half of the year, we believe this change is primarily attributable to our decision to reduce the number of heavy-weighted shipments in our network. This strategic reduction also had a positive impact on LTL revenue per hundredweight. Customer demand for our service offerings remains strong, and we believe our service center network capacity will remain sufficient to support the anticipated growth of our business for the foreseeable future.” 

Gantt added that ODFL intends to continue to reinvest in its business to ensure that it has the necessary equipment, facilities and people to support our long-term strategic initiatives, which it believes will continue to increase shareholder value.

In a recent interview, Gantt told LM that ODFL is busy across the entire market, whether it is the industrial economy, the retail economy, and everything else it is in, like its medical business, for example.

“It really applies to all aspects of our industry relating to our customers’ business lines,” he said. “There is some impact on the last-mile side, too, and there are some different ways to ‘skin that cat’ by hauling product out from the Amazon’s of the world and deliver it to somebody’s home. That is one aspect.  A company like Amazon not only has last-mile, they also have middle mile, with somebody bringing freight into a DC that does not always come in as a truckload. A lot of it arrives via LTL, and we think that is where we fit maybe in many cases better than in the last-mile piece of that business. But we have outlets for that, too.”