Landstar

[EVlLBOB]

Man is freight dead. I recently heard from an agent that Landstar stockholders are griping about the drop in freight volume and revenue. Apparently they are telling upper management to put pressure on agents to cut the fuel surcharge in order to get more freight or to include the surcharge in the rate so that Landstar and the agents get a slice while driving up overall Landstar corporate revenue. Pretty crappy of them to try and take money from us when things get slow. Of course, it is not unexpected. Freight is still way slow though. Everything out there is either too cheap or too heavy or both. Military freight is nonexistent. I am hearing about drivers selling cars and houses and whatever to try and keep their heads above water. There are several Landstar trucks sitting with me at the truckstop now and freight sucks. I too have felt the pinch and last year was the worst I have ever had. This year ain't looking much better. I have my truck and trailer up for sale but don't expect anybody to make an offer. I may have to take some sort of company job if something doesn't break loose soon.

[EVlLBOB]

Dang, I am going to biotch here more often. I just booked a $7,000 dollar load. Not bad, $3.60 a mile. I could use a couple of 15,000 dollar loads though so that I could be a lot lazier.

[Jack5]

Bob,when I was at Landstar those 3.60mile loads were few and very far between. Freight is slow and now they want to cut the FS and make rates even lower? :wtf: Im not surprised. That is how megaccarriers usually work. I have been thinking about getting my own authority and hauling for a few customers in my area,but Im not sure if the work is consistent.A lot of O/Os will come upon a 3.00 load and then get over their heads thinking they will always get those rates and start buying expensive cars,houses,and other things. Is that trailer you want to sell a reefer,drybox.or flatbed?

[Chiefwhatdahey]

Think spring. It's pretty obvious that the 3rd and 4th qtr's caught everyone with their pants down and the first qtr rarely produces good results for flat work. I have managed to stay fairly busy but the search time for decent rates has definately increased.

As far as FSC's and rates go if it isn't there then I don't haul it, my eqp't is paid for so I can afford to sit if I have to :cheers:

[EVlLBOB]

I pull a low stepdeck 35" deck height. 2005 Doonan but I don't really want to sell out unless somebody makes me an insane offer.

Part of the problem is fuel prices. Companies can't afford to deadhead so they are more likely to bid on freight close too an empty truck and all the excess bidding for freight is driving rates down. Normally an empty truck might just be deadheaded to a normal customer but higher fuel prices have made that so it is not cost effective. Plus, like Werner said in Trucker's News, there is an increased capacity since a lot of fleets have prebought trucks prior to 07' emissions. I don't buy that though because an increased capacity would indicate that they had drivers for all those extra trucks and I don't think so. Not from all the trucks I see sitting around company yards anyway. I know this is the slow time of year especially for flatbed type freight but it is even worse than usual.

Jack5 most of my freight is military and $3.60 per mile and up is not uncommon at all. If anything though military freight has dropped since the government effectively has eliminated the fuel surcharge (they base the formula for computing surcharge on $2.50 a gallon now). I am not interested in hauling for less than 2 bucks a mile so I do sit waiting for military stuff. But rates for fak have definitely dropped. Hope things pick up.

[Capt._Chaos]

I was leased to Landstar in the first quarter of '02 and had my girlfriend/co-driver with me. We got discouraged after three months, as we had very few team loads to run and I couldn't pay two salaries & truck expenses on what solo trips they had most of the time.

My mistake was leasing to them during such a slow time of the year, as it made it hard for us to become acquainted with agents & prove ourselves to them other than the rare occasion when a hot load popped up with no other teams in the area.

[EVlLBOB]

Yep, we would really be in trouble if we weren't an A&E team. Been doing that for going on 16 years. A&E = Arms, Ammunition and Explosives.

[Capt._Chaos]

Yep, we would really be in trouble if we weren't an A&E team. Been doing that for going on 16 years. A&E = Arms, Ammunition and Explosives.

Hmm, strange! :wtf:

One would think A&E freight would be moving quite well ovr the last few years since we've been at war with Iraq.