If Swift Can Do It…

Carrier pricing power is improving industry-wide, and Swift is ahead of the curve. The company’s ability to raise freight prices was underscored by a 5.2% first-quarter increase in revenue per loaded mile (excluding fuel charges), versus an industry average of only 4.8%

If Swift can raise rates, what’s holding everyone else up?

I realize it may take brokered loads a bit longer to catch up to what a carrier will charge it’s customer.

This is still good news for the rest of us.

This may be good news for rates, but there’s still fuel and insurance that will keep most truckers broke. There is a lot of good news about the economy, rates and trucking in general. But fuel and insurance has always countered any good news for our industry.

Trucking companies come and go and will continue to do so. Even in a good economy businesses go under for a variety of reasons. That doesn’t mean the industry as a whole is in a downward spiral.

I still think that if we keep the trucking capacity (supply) down by not allowing companies to over-hire drivers, rates will rise as demand picks up.

Rates will rise enough to cover our fuel and insurance like they always have. The strong and smart will survive while the dumb go out of business.

And the rest of us just keep on truckin’.

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