Second-Quarter 2004 Shippers Survey Results
Airfreight and Surface Transportation

Decreased Expectations for Compliance with List Rate Increases at FDX and UPS.  Survey results show that our respondents on average are paying a lesser percent of FDX and UPS’ proposed list rate increases than both last quarter and a year ago, and slightly less at FDX than at UPS.  Going forward, they expect a similar scenario of paying only modest rate increases for FDX and UPS. 

TL Capacity Extremely Tight and Remains Tighter Than LTL. TL capacity is currently the tightest we have seen in the seven years we have been conducting this survey.  LTL capacity appears to have remained fairly balanced albeit modestly tighter compared to a year ago.  Shippers expect both trends to continue with TL and LTL capacity to tighten further over the next twelve months.

USF Likely to See Some Immediate Traction in the Northeast.  Roughly 42% of our survey respondents (half old USF Red Star customers and half new) intend to try USF Holland’s new service in the N.E. which it plans to rollout this month. Roughly 49% of our survey respondents who currently use Holland in the Mid-west indicated that they plan to grow with Holland into the N.E. over the next 12 months.

Rail Service Levels Deteriorated During Second-Quarter 2004.  Survey results indicated that Class I service levels deteriorated on a year-over-year basis (with an average score of 2.4 for the group, down from 3.1 a year ago and 2.7 on a sequential basis out of a scale of 5).

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