Yellow, a major trucking company is shutting down and expected to file for bankruptcy. With 30,000 jobs at stake, it is set to be the largest trucking bankruptcy in US history and will affect the LTL market in USA and Canada. The company has been facing financial troubles, declining revenue, and labor disputes, leading to an exodus of customers. 

At Sealion Cargo we’ve already witnessed the challenges faced by the carriers’ announcement on Sunday. It was a clear warning sign when some pickups did not materialize last week. We are anticipating the final shipments booked with Yellow, YRC, and its other related companies to work their way through the LTL carriers network this week. It is unfortunate to loose a key carrier - coordinating LTL is enough of a challenge as it is, and the consolidations that are likely to follow are unlikely to be seamless. For Canada-USA cross border shipments the loss of YRC has had a significant impact as well, now limiting the pool of LTL solutions to only a handful of providers. In the short term, the failure is likely to drive prices up -especially of the 3-5 business day products. Unfortunately, on 1-3 pallet shipments there is not a lot of economical solutions other than LTL, however as of 4+ pallets and above the Sealion team are now pro-actively also providing clients with dedicated FTL and sprinter options, together with the standard LTL pricing. In some cases our team has found viable air freight alternatives. 

Yellow's bankruptcy and shutdown would mean the loss of 30,000 jobs. This is extremely unfortunate, however our industry is prone to boom & bust cycles. As Yellow's operations are winding down, the increased pricing and 3PL labor availability will surely attract carriers to invest more in LTL solutions in the coming quarters.