Letter to the Editor: LTL Rate Hikes

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img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>This is in response to “Bureau Proposes 6.1% Hike in LTL General Tariff Rates” (4-26, p. 3). My company strongly opposes this latest suggested hike that we consider inflationary and unjust.

This increase matches each of the last five years and has been coming in sequences of 10 to 11 months rather than annual increases.

In the same issue of Transport Topics that announced the increase proposal, we see the announcements of carriers with increased profits and as much as a 37% profit increase by one of them. We also are seeing carriers’ operating ratios [of expenses relative to revenue] much lower than has been reported for years, reaching the lower 90s and even upper 80s.

With higher-than-ever profits and lower operating ratios, how can you justify the proposed rate increase? Somewhere along the line the inflationary increases being taken by the carriers need to stop, and pricing needs to be in line with our gross domestic product growth. Shippers and receivers need to take the carriers to task to stop inflationary pricing methods being presented each year.

Kenneth Schooley

I>Director of Transportation

merican Water Heater Co.

ohnson City, Tenn.

This article appears in the May 17 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.