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Graves not sure if we’ve hit bottom yet
10/07/2008
NEW ORLEANS. With Wall Street’s chaos as a backdrop, American
Trucking Assns. (ATA) president & CEO Bill Graves told his members,
“Things are not going well for our industry and we face some awfully
tough times in the near future.”
Citing war and global unrest,
record fuel prices, the economic slowdown, disappearing credit,
shrinking freight tonnage, and political uncertainty, he told the major
trucking companies gathered here for the group’s annual convention that
“I’m not confident anyone knows if we’ve bottomed out – and if and when
we do – how long it will take before anything close to an economic
recovery will occur.”
During a panel discussion by three industry
economists, ATA’s chief economist Bob Costello echoed Graves’ opening
conference remarks, offering that “things will get worse before they
get better.” While freight levels had begun to show signs of recovery
in the spring, levels began deteriorating in July and the current
economy “ensures freight will fall again,” he said.
Revising
expectations for the fall shipping season from “muted” to “negative,”
Costello added that “Until we can really assess what’s going on [with
the current economic unrest], we can’t really make a forecast.”
If
there is a silver lining in the downturn for the industry it’s that
“capacity will be very tight when the recovery comes, whenever that
will be,” Costello said. Last year, he pointed out, the overall
truckload fleet declined by 2.6%, and in the first half of 2008 “it
shrank another 1.3%.”
Drawing parallels to New Orleans’ recovery
from Hurricane Katrina, Graves told ATA members that “there are lessons
to be learned” even in the worst of times. “The key is have a plan,” he
said, outlining ATA’s legislative agenda for 2009.
At the top of
that agenda is reauthorization of the highway spending fund during next
year’s Congressional session. ATA’s efforts will focus on three
elements, Graves said – efforts by trucking to cut its carbon
footprint, a new highway safety initiative and “continuing to emphasize
the basic essentiality of the trucking industry.”
Jim Mele, editor-in-chief
Fleet Owner, Jim Mele, editor-in-chief, http://fleetowner.com/management/graves_trucking_industry_economic_slowdown_1007/