Is KLLM as solid as they say?

Morrow yard? As in Morrow, GA? If so, wasn't that the old Quest yard?

 

Yeah, that was all teams.
Maybe KLLM is going to use the FFE terminal in Atlanta or the KLLM terminal in Cartersville. Costs lots of money to keep a terminal open.

 

@Lostmykey

 

We’re switching too using Quest’s cartersville yard as our main hub in that area and management implied it’ll become just as nice as the recently remodeled morrow one; I don’t know the timeline. They billed it as a cost-saving feature and are probably selling the morrow location, it makes sense to me, but seems like a shame with it’s recently completed expansion; I didn’t like going into Atlanta metro anyway, but idk how it’ll affect local/regional drivers.

as for health of kllm, idk, freight seemed ok except from TG to new years… but they are rolling out pay cuts. OTR went from 60-70 to 55-65 and not sure if the extras affected; my minimum guarantee is dropping from 1500 to 1400, but supposedly cpm is increasing from 60-70 to 65-75? That doesn’t look right, they said I was getting a 5 cent boost, but another driver said he’d still be capped at 70.

Changes take affect this period for my acct, so will know soon. My acct also went from returning automatically without preplans to being required to wait in area after delivery. We’re also getting more back hauls; so far the waiting mostly results in me getting told to dh with just an extra day thrown in for no reason. ‍

 

That should be illegal to cut someone’s pay like that. Senior drivers should be grandfathered in to that pay scale and if they wanna lower the pay for the never drivers coming on that’s fine. But to cut pay like that is a shame.

 

The other driver I spoke woth said this isn’t the first paycut he’s been thru at kllm; but just 2yrs ago ceo was touting a 33% pay raise… so… no press release with this. It feels like otr is now back in line cpm wise with comparable sized companies. It could be an attempt to downsize a lil and other drivers I’ve spoken to have voiced quitting; but in this market, quit and go where? And our pay still seems above avg for comparable companies.

Walking around my warehouse’s yard, I’m always happy to talk with other companies; prime, wilson, stevens, may, some independents and consensus is to stay put atm.

 

Update:
I went into the shop and the cpm increase didn’t appear that week, only had a few hundred miles anyway; the trip date could’ve just been before start date but was different than how I heard it described.

Was then off a week. First full week back and I did get the cpm increase; as well as going over both the new and original minimum guarantee, so I’d certainly be happier if this continues. Another driver did say he was still doing less and getting the bump up.

Also, ceo released a video addressing social media talk. While no one likes pay cuts, I did feel that the previous 33% increase made us one of the highest paid “starter” companies; and some of us drink the koolaid to stick around much longer. I believe kllm has access to capital (duffs) and the responsiveness to get through bad markets, and feel much safer here with their qol.

The only other thing I’m looking for in an otr company, that kllm lacks, is the ability to bring large dogs (60-100lbs golden retrievers for me); it’s not a dealbreaker for me atm and for the ones that do allow large dogs they’d need to be comparable to kllm. I’ve not found another company, it’d either be a paycut, qol gamble, or smaller/more vulnerable. If all I wanted was more money or to be home daily, I’d provably try for Wal-Mart or big limehaul company.

 

They have a driving academy in Indiana where 80% of the students failed their CDL exams consistently, students from previous classes said the same thing about the students before them. Instructors made no effort to teach the students and there were only a few trucks to drive, way too many students, only 2-3 instructors, these factors lead to each student only driving about one hour per day. One instructor said that they are getting paid for each student learning and there is no bonus for passing students so it doesn’t matter if someone passes or not. That’s discouraging and unprofessional in my opinion, they made many more similar comments. When you sign up for the program you will owe them money for the driving academy even if you don’t pass the exam and you will not be hired so you risk going home with no job, time wasted and in debt. It felt like they did not want to hire new drivers but maybe want to make money from people deciding to join the academy. I’m lucky that I wasn’t stuck in their contract and I could leave quickly enough. Switched to another company to obtain my CDL. The company seems to be going down in some ways. I know former and current employees. I hear that freight is at all time low and they are losing contracts, closing terminals and cutting costs and pay. I hope this information helps!

 

You know things are overall pretty bad when food-related carriers give feedback like that above.....

-- L