FedEx and J.B. Hunt Strategize for an Anticipated Freight Surge
Two of the top for-hire carriers in the U.S., FedEx and J.B. Hunt, are setting the stage for a potential upswing in the freight industry following a period of tepid demand, as highlighted by executives at a recent industry gathering.
J.B. Hunt Transport Services’ President Shelley Simpson remarked on Nov. 12 at the 54th annual Baird Global Industrial Conference, “This, for us, has been the toughest freight recession — and longest — in terms of depth and duration in my 30-year career. But I think we’ve done a good job managing through that part of the process. We’re looking forward to turning the chapter and hopefully moving into a better position coming into 2025.”
During this downturn, J.B. Hunt prioritized three core areas to ensure readiness for market improvement. These include enhancing customer value to seize emerging opportunities, scaling investments across diverse business units, and delivering long-term returns to shareholders.
Simpson elaborated, “Our first priority is really to reinvest back into the business for long-term returns. Anytime that we could put more capital to use from an equipment perspective on behalf of our customers, that’s going to be over a longer-term basis. And then, certainly, we’re going to be thinking about opportunistic buying from a stock perspective and then return back dividends to our shareholders.”
Meanwhile, FedEx Corp.’s Chief Financial Officer John Dietrich discussed the broader economic challenges affecting their key revenue streams. “I think if you reflect on the numbers, we were impacted by reductions in our highest yielding products,” he noted. The industrial sector’s decline has had a notable impact, with manufacturing contracting 23 times over the past two years as per the Manufacturing ISM Report on Business.
Dietrich predicts that industrial production, alongside the rise of e-commerce, will play a significant role in boosting freight volume growth. “We’ll be well positioned for that,” Dietrich said. “E-commerce is going to make up a large percentage — probably up to 90% — of the volume growth that our ground network and our freight business will be the beneficiary of. So, we can’t ignore that volume is going to be there. We just have to find the right cost structure to accommodate it.”
Until the anticipated rebound, FedEx is focused on maximizing revenue quality and managing capacity, largely by transferring heavier freight to truckload services due to ample capacity. Despite some softness in volumes, the pricing environment remains favorable, with Dietrich adding, “You’re seeing volumes are softer [and] the weight per shipment is down slightly, roughly 3%. But we’re seeing a 5% improvement per hundredweight. You have a strong pricing environment and we’ll be very capable of adapting to the return of volumes.”
Simpson also emphasized the freight recession’s link to market disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to an oversupply of capacity post-pandemic. “We’ve not been good at predicting the entire COVID up or down,” she stated. Despite these challenges, she noted positive developments, particularly in dedicated contract services, which have maintained a robust pipeline and excellent sales productivity.
Looking ahead to 2025, Simpson highlighted the significance of investing in long-term opportunities for personnel, technology, and capacity. “We’ve invested in long-term opportunities for us and our people, our technology and capacity,” she affirmed. “That’s going to be really important for us as we lean into 2025 and think about the capacity that we’ve added. If you think about it from an intermodal perspective, we still have plenty of equipment to really source for our customers, and help them as they grow.”
Source: Transport Topics
