[sdelliott31]

We run 17 cargo vans. Granted 6 are down looking for drivers at the moment. It seems every memorial day weekend there is a big driver change over. Thats for another post. However we still have 10 to 11 running and we had 5000 loaded miles last week and about 7000 this week. Its been tough sledding. Just for anyone elses knowledge, I received the following reply from Panther. I don't know if it helps, but its information.

It is a challenging time for everyone right now. There are a number of small and large carriers that are calling it quits. The near death of automotive has only exasperated the problem. Although it seems slow, we are still growing load count, increasing our Y/Y length of haul and are keeping the fleet at a stable size that supports the loads we are getting. If you follow the talking heads on CNBC and other financial programs, you will notice a very telling thing going on which is no more doom and gloom. The focus has turned very positive. This matches what we are getting from analyist in the trucking industry. There will be more failures but these are going to lead to stabilization on pricing and a turn towards capacity demand. Hang in there, manage you drivers to make smart decisions which includes not getting scared on high fuel. If you need to move to get a load….go. Sitting in a bad spot because you don’t want to buy fuel is not going to help. Talk to you soon.

[jwc]

been kinda slow but not dead

[sdelliott31]

I'm starting to go through the numbers for this week and it was a little better (thanks to a 1300 mile laredo run) but still on the sporadic side. However we have about 7 vans down right now and just a tought time getting drivers aboard. It does seem to be picking up slightly (for cargos anyway). I'm contemplating taking 2 or 3 older vans off and saving the Panther fees, and running that way for awhile. Gotta get this thing turned around. We have 17 but seem to be doing the work of about 8 (even when we did have 13 or 14 out there).