Who is the best LTL to be with during the upcoming recession?

Pay is pretty good, your home everynight, and most people (especially nowadays) aren't going to spend more than a year or two on the extra board if they are at a terminal with a decent population size before a dedicated bid run opens up. Also, the health insurance that I had at Estes in summer 2021 was phenominal, it was dirt cheap (might as well have been free) and it wasn't some "catastrophic Obamacare plan" or anything like that (where you pay the first $8,500 out of pocket before even a pennie of insurance starst to kick in, that's what I mean by catastrophic Obamacare plan where you only have the health insurance for dire emergencies). So, I suspect a lot of drivers will do P&D simply for the great health insurance for them and their famillies at many of these LTL places.

A few notes as it regards to Estes:

1. Garbage equipment for the most part. No assigned tractors for P&D and supposed to be assigned tractors for linehaul, but that was never enforced. Linehaul had some decent newer trucks mixed in with some not so great trucks, P&D had all garbage trucks unless you were lucky to get a P&D start time that lined up with a linehaul drivers schedule, so you could just use the linehaul guys (nicer) truck for the day and have it back to him before he started his run.

2. Slip seating for P&D, slip seating for linehaul even though it wasn't supposed to be like that for linehaul.

3. You deal with a bunch of BS doing P&D. If you have no reason or want to be home daily, 100% not worth it IMO (unless maybe it was a smaller town with 100k or less people).

4. Linehaul at the terminal that I was at did just as much "hurry up and wait" as OTR reefer drivers did and no, linehaul guys do not get paid for having to sit at the terminal because the dock guys are behind. Linehaul guys still have to show up on time for their home nightly bid runs too. The difference being that OTR guys get a nice sleeper with most of the comforts of home while they wait.

5. OT was after 52 hours at both Estes and Old Dominion for P&D guys. Estes/OD/a lot of LTL companies pay for "breaking" and "putting together" sets, which is basically the equivalent of a drop and hook with a few extra steps. Estes didn't pay for fueling. Some LTL companies do pay for fueling.

6. At LTL companies, especially when it comes to linehaul, seniority is everything. At Estes a guy with more seniority could one day decide that he likes your bid run because his dog looked at him the wrong way that day (you don't need a reason), and it was something like a couple weeks to a month later he would get your bid run, thus kicking you off the bid run and forcing you to kick someone else off of their bid run. Or if you were low man on the totem pole with a home dailly bid run and a more senior guy kicked you off your bid run, you were forced back to the extra board.

7. You don't bank time off doing linehaul. There is no staying out a month to get more days off, if you stay out a month running the road on extra board you are still going to only get 2 days off when you finally need a day off. That's why most extra board guys just run regional, out 5, home 2, not really an advantage in running the road for long periods of time. That also means no "mini vacations" every month like you get running OTR. Plus with linehaul you don't get a sleeper truck unless you run team. Having driven a day cab at Estes and a sleeper truck OTR, I can say it makes a HUGE difference in comfort and quality of life having that sleeper truck to drive around in, instead of a daycab.

8. Keep in mind, you get no per diem working LTL either. Which may or may not be a big deal to some but if you're a single person, even if you max out your 401k to avoid taxes, taxes are still going to kill you if you're not getting per diem, meaning that your gross income of 100k may dwarf that of an OTR's gross income of 75k, but once you consider in the per diem tax savings of OTR (which is significant for single people) then what comes home in your pocket pretty much evens out in most cases. Again I realize there's a big debate between whether per diem is good or bad and it certainly varies from individual to individual, but I think that's worth pointing out when talking about the differences between OTR and LTL.

LTL is pretty good but it's definitely not the end all be all though. In my opinion LTL caters to the family man, while OTR caters to the single man.

 

I know FedEx Freight in Atlanta is a no go! I was a road driver over there until recently before I decided to part ways just because I was not working but only two days a week. I had a bid run last year and was working 5 days a week. The run didn't pay the greatest but it was steady. After January, it just fell off of a cliff. I noticed Southeastern and Estes out more than anything. Southeastern was hiring for a P&D Driver as well as a linehaul driver at one of the Atlanta terminals but I imagine those have since been filled. Its a tough time for LTL right now for sure.

 

Hardly see the FedEx Freight trucks anymore in the Midwest- used to see them all the time.

Now would be a good time for a rival or new company to come in deal a knockout blow- hit them hard when they are reeling (if anyone is looking to do that).

 

I don't think its a good time to be at any LTL... We've gotten several former LTL applications in the past few months, and they keep coming in. Low guy on the seniority knowing he's about to get bumped back to extra, extras not getting any runs, furloughed drivers, etc.

 

Flying J Salt Lake had a DEF tanker position advertised a couple of days ago.