If you're sitting in Detroit for 10 days, and are actually in-service the whole time, there is no way you're not gonna get several load offers within those 10 days. Unless, of course, your acceptance is abysmal or your on-time performance is to where they can't trust you to deliver it on time. There are simply too many loads going out of there on a daily basis, or those ahead of you are turning loads down, for you to not move up the boards. You can be #30 on the board on Monday morning, and by Tuesday you'll be likely in the top 5 on the board due to outgoing loads and loads being turned down.
I ran a mini yesterday, one that the driver just ahead of me on the board had turned down. One of those Elite Services Air Charter Door-to-Door loads. It was 52 miles deadhead from Evansville to the airport in Owensboro, pickup and take it
zero loaded miles to another address (about 1000 feet away, actually). A van mini is usually $50, but because of the deadhead involved it was offered at a flat rate of $100.
All things being equal, $100 to drive 52 miles, and then take perhaps a half hour total to get loaded and then unloaded, is a pretty good deal for a van that normally gets paid roughly $1.05 per mile depending on the FSC. But, all things weren't equal, which is probably why that other driver turned the load down.
The load offer came in around 1300 and was for a 1900 pickup (and a 1930 delivery), which meant that if you accepted it at 1 PM you would effectively be removed from any
possibility of getting a better run on a Friday, maybe one with long miles for a Monday delivery. You can do the 52 miles to Owensboro for $100 and it's all good, but in a cargo van it's not likely that you'll get a load out of there on a weekend, and while there are places in Owensboro to sit for a few hours, there really isn't any good place if you have to sit the entire weekend. Which means deadheading another 52 miles right back to the truck stops in Evansville (so it's 104 miles now, for the $100, but that's still not too bad), or taking your First-Out and heading to Louisville or some other place (an additional 100-plus miles).
Suddenly $100 isn't really worth it. Not with having to commit to the load as early in the day as 1300 and giving up any hope of getting a better load out than that.
But, the load's gotta be covered, I know that. Work with me. I explained the above problems and concerns to dispatch and asked what they could do, otherwise I didn't think I could run the load. They offered $200 flat rate, which I accepted, but imposed one other condition. I could see it coming, an air charter on which the freight has exclusive use of the plane (just like us)... more often than not it's a hand load from the plane to the van, or it's a hand unload from the van to the consignee, often with an inside delivery. They said the load was 38 boxes, 1200 pounds. I didn't want
any part of that hand load or unload for the standard $25 rate, not in and out of a plane on a cold, dark, windy night like that. I asked for $50 for each hand load or hand unload, if it occurred. They agreed.
I arrived at the air charter service just as the plane touched down. Turns out it was 65 boxes, 1700 pounds, milk crate auto parts, that were originally on two skids (one with the big black plastic lid and one regular skid with 5 milk crates on it), but the originating airport didn't have a forklift, so they had to break down the skids into the plane.
I backed the van up to the door of the plane, put an empty skid in the van, and we (pilot and me) crawled up into the plane and starting pushing the crates towards the door. I'd get out and put a few boxes in the van, then get back up and move some more closer to the door. Except for the knees on the diamond plate floor, it wasn't all that unlike shuffling boxes around in the crawl space under your house. An hour after I arrived the van was loaded and I was on my way on the 1000 foot (if that) journey to the consignee, where they had plenty of forklifts, and I was unloaded within 5 minutes. If the skids hadn't been broken down on the plane, they could have just driven a forklift over and grabbed it.
An hour drive over, an hour to get loaded and delivered, and an hour drive back. $250. I may have missed out on a better load by taking that one, or I may have missed out on a run that paid about the same. But then again, the other guy who turned it down was still here when I got back, so I very well may have still been sitting here all weekend regardless. And, my First-Out here actually
is first out, which is no small consideration in a place like Evansville, as four other vans arrived while I was on that mini.
It's a cat eat cat world out there.
Slow and steady, even in expediting, wins the race - Aesop
