TRANSPORTATION TRENDS: 2-13-23

As flowers are handed out this week, TLI investigates the trucking aspect of the holiday. TL spot markets and LTL environments continue with looser capacity.

Valentines Day Freight Insight:

Chocolates, cards, dinners, and flowers are on the demand in the beginning of February. However, live flowers can be a hassle for a truckload carrier to haul. The reason is that most floral loads consist of hand-loaded and hand-unloaded shipments. The flowers are typically not palletized, and the destinations may not have a dock.

Miami is the home of flower imports – with dozens of 747 jumbo jets arriving from South America daily in Miami with fresh cut flowers. These flowers are then handled on average of 500 trucks per day out of Miami to their final destinations. Shockingly, 80% of this volume is handled by three large truckload carriers. The week before Valentine’s Day is the surge for these floral carriers.

Truckload:

Spot market load-to-truck ratio continues to lower across all equipment weekly. Rates are lower in the first week of February compared to January rates, as seen below in the TLI Chart of the Week by DAT. January saw a -68.5% decrease in year-over-year comparison of 2023 to 2022 spot postings with 33.3% truck postings increase. This help shows a lower volume, more capacity January compared to last year. 

Less-Than-Truckload:

Contrary to the past couple years, LTL carrier performance continues to rise. With much more capacity available, on-time performances have improved, and response times have become much better though the carrier’s customer service teams. TLI actively monitors LTL environments and provide updates on what is being seen in the LTL networks.

TLI is actively monitoring situations in the industry, such as acquisitions, embargos, and other industry disruptions. If a TLI client is directly affected by any of these events, your TLI representatives will reach out to discuss what this means for your account.

TLI highly suggests that on all shipments you provide our team with the “Must Arrive by Date” (MABD) as to when you need the product delivered. This will help us select the proper transit time / equipment type at the best current freight rate.

Please contact your Translogistics team at 610-280-3210 for any further questions. 

*article written by Mitchell Kinek, Sales/Marketing Executive, Translogistics. Any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out!

The chart above depicts national average line haul rates and fuel surcharges for equipment in the past 4 months, from DAT.