XPO | CFI Leaving?

Ditto. That was worth some green. So was av8tors post. "The only place Truckload is going is in your yard, with your freight, instead of you".

You guys would have a better feel for this part than I would but, to this point, I haven't seen any indication that it's happening, at least so far. If I find myself empty in northern Indiana or Illinois early in the afternoon, there's a pretty good chance that I'll be sent to Fremont or Des Plaines to set up for a load the following morning. This was the case when we were CFI and it's still the case now. Utah (Salt Lake City), Wisconsin (Neenah), and some parts of California seem to follow a similar pattern but I don't get out that way very often.

At the time of the merger we were told that some of the Con-way lanes would be used to decrease our dwell time and such, since other OTR carriers could be aced out of the process. Maybe it's just that our regular freight levels have been pretty solid lately or maybe I just haven't been in those areas much, but I would say that the number of Con-way loads that I pull has remained pretty constant since I started here in '06. Probably about 1 out of every 10-12 loads, if I had to put a number on it.

Given that we stopped hiring for several months this year and sold off the Volvo trucks that were left from the old Con-way Truckload, I don't think that we have nearly the capacity to displace any linehaul drivers right now. We're staying pretty busy just servicing our existing customers. The end of the year will bring new bids and new routes (some gained, some lost) so maybe this will all change, but thus far I think it's more speculation than reality.
 
You guys would have a better feel for this part than I would but, to this point, I haven't seen any indication that it's happening, at least so far. If I find myself empty in northern Indiana or Illinois early in the afternoon, there's a pretty good chance that I'll be sent to Fremont or Des Plaines to set up for a load the following morning. This was the case when we were CFI and it's still the case now. Utah (Salt Lake City), Wisconsin (Neenah), and some parts of California seem to follow a similar pattern but I don't get out that way very often.

At the time of the merger we were told that some of the Con-way lanes would be used to decrease our dwell time and such, since other OTR carriers could be aced out of the process. Maybe it's just that our regular freight levels have been pretty solid lately or maybe I just haven't been in those areas much, but I would say that the number of Con-way loads that I pull has remained pretty constant since I started here in '06. Probably about 1 out of every 10-12 loads, if I had to put a number on it.

Given that we stopped hiring for several months this year and sold off the Volvo trucks that were left from the old Con-way Truckload, I don't think that we have nearly the capacity to displace any linehaul drivers right now. We're staying pretty busy just servicing our existing customers. The end of the year will bring new bids and new routes (some gained, some lost) so maybe this will all change, but thus far I think it's more speculation than reality.

From what I've seen, it seems to be the other companies more than Truckload. I've never seen so many outside carriers used to haul Con-way's Freight. A few weeks ago in Newark, NJ Freight pulled home something like 11 empties home to the West while 7 vans were loaded to the West. If I remember right, it was WAY more than 11 empties but I do not want to exaggerate.

From personal experience at Hagerstown, freight is crammed and jammed into vans, pups combined, and freight diverted while Pittsburgh pulls empties back West every night.

I gave up trying to figure it all out.
 
You guys would have a better feel for this part than I would but, to this point, I haven't seen any indication that it's happening, at least so far. If I find myself empty in northern Indiana or Illinois early in the afternoon, there's a pretty good chance that I'll be sent to Fremont or Des Plaines to set up for a load the following morning. This was the case when we were CFI and it's still the case now. Utah (Salt Lake City), Wisconsin (Neenah), and some parts of California seem to follow a similar pattern but I don't get out that way very often.

At the time of the merger we were told that some of the Con-way lanes would be used to decrease our dwell time and such, since other OTR carriers could be aced out of the process. Maybe it's just that our regular freight levels have been pretty solid lately or maybe I just haven't been in those areas much, but I would say that the number of Con-way loads that I pull has remained pretty constant since I started here in '06. Probably about 1 out of every 10-12 loads, if I had to put a number on it.

Given that we stopped hiring for several months this year and sold off the Volvo trucks that were left from the old Con-way Truckload, I don't think that we have nearly the capacity to displace any linehaul drivers right now. We're staying pretty busy just servicing our existing customers. The end of the year will bring new bids and new routes (some gained, some lost) so maybe this will all change, but thus far I think it's more speculation than reality.

Well I have heard many, many times on Sirius radio, Herb Schmidt advertising for new drivers. Solo and team. I have been hearing the commercial pretty regularly now. What does that mean?
 
Well I have heard many, many times on Sirius radio, Herb Schmidt advertising for new drivers. Solo and team. I have been hearing the commercial pretty regularly now. What does that mean?
It probably means that they want solos and teams. They started hiring again around the beginning of September.
 
If the economy is down and freight is down, why are they hiring?
OTR companies almost never lay off drivers. They don't have to. In a given month, a handful of people will quit because they miss their families and such. Others will get fired for accidents or speeding tickets or late deliveries and so forth. So, to reduce the size of a fleet, they just stop hiring. This is what they did for the bulk of this year.

Now that our fleet has gone from around 3,000 trucks to around 2,400-2,500, it's back in line with the demands of our customers. Thus, they have to hire a few people every week to replace those who leave.

If freight levels rebound, they can add independent contractors more quickly than they can add new employees, so they'll offer some kind of perk to draw them in. Then they'll ramp up hiring to get the employee fleet where they want it. I haven't seen any indication that they're taking any such steps to increase the fleet size yet. Usually it's pretty obvious when they go hog wild with recruiting contests and things of that nature.
 
i was on the highway yesterday on my city peddle and i got smoked by a CFI truck. had at least 5 mph on me. must be they are not saving fuel like us. i laughed to myself, here i am driving down the road at 62 mph.... getting paid by the hour. the trucks would get a lot better fuel mileage if we turned them down to 55 mph :wink1:
 
CFI is not going anywhere they are expanding their regional lanes to eliminate linehaul positions at all service centers
 
That rumor has circulated among the CFI drivers' lounges since about five minutes after the merger. It's based largely on the notion that Con-way is somehow behind on payments to the former owners of CFI, allowing those former owners to re-claim the company. The genius part of the rumor is the fact that those spreading it are apparently unaware that Con-way was never making payments to the former owners, as many of you have lamented in discussions of the bridge loan and subsequent financing vehicles.

Some others:

The old CFI is opening in Tulsa as part of Melton.

Con-way wanted to give us a five cent raise, but the CFI brass made it one cent. We're getting the other four cents on {insert an upcoming date here}.

We're all going to have to load our own trailers on Con-way linehaul loads beginning on {insert an upcoming date here}.

We're being required to get 'T' endorsements.

{Insert bizarre number or percentage here} drivers have quit because everything sucks now that Con-way owns the company.

Herb Schmidt is leaving the company to run for mayor of Joplin. (This one goes back even further than the merger.)

All solo drivers will be forced to run as teams.

I'm sure there are more.


I can tell you how at least one CFI driver likes his job now as a Con-way employee. The logo on the doors of the trucks is a little prettier, I suppose. Other than that nothing has really changed.

The trucks were going to be turned down anyway. Anyone who didn't see the writing on the wall when fuel was $4.50 a gallon is a moron.

It's hard to say with any specificity, but I think that the health insurance options got marginally better for us. My cost (individual) went up by a couple bucks a week, as one would expect each year with or without a new corporate boss.

The 401(k) match was improved, then taken away. I guess, since the Truckload end has remained profitable, the argument could be made that we wouldn't have lost this if we were still CFI. Given the overall climate of the industry though, I would expect that we would have lost it anyhow.

We got a penny raise while our holiday pay, safety bonus, and vacation stayed the same. Our drop pay and detention were improved slightly. Miles were certainly down at the start of last year, but again this seemed to be an industry-wide issue rather than a Con-way one. To be perfectly honest, if nobody had ever told me that we were sold, I wouldn't have seen any reason to suspect that CFI had changed at all over the last couple of years. Companies adjust little things here and there as time goes on and CFI always did as well, before Con-way bought the company.

One thing to keep in mind when these conversations arise - OTR drivers are, in general, some of the most dishonest and bitter people on the planet. I haven't figured out if this job makes people that way or if it simply attracts people who are already that way. I live by myself with very few responsibilities and I have a short attention span, so I tend to get a kick out of the randomness of it all. Maybe these guys with families and such are just miserable with the experience in general. I don't know. Anyhow, since we're believing what Truckload drivers say now, I have this bridge to sell...

One other note regarding the "goodwill impairment" taken earlier this year. Before I got fed up with people and ran away to be a truck driver, I worked in the financial world. My sense at the time of the earnings report was that the company saw an opportunity during a bad quarter to make an adjustment for the new 'perceived' market value of CFI. If they had done it in a decent quarter it would have stood out more. Since they did it at a time when the whole industry was cutting left and right, it wasn't shocking to any analysts. Now, going forward, the return on equity will look better to the shareholders since they'll still bank whatever earnings are reported, but they'll do so with a company that is 'worth' less money. This isn't official or anything. Just my take on the report when it came out. The hard assets obviously didn't go anywhere, but a little accounting gimmick might make some people look smarter down the road.

Vito as far as road drivers being bitter...I can answer that...I ran the road for years....these guys come into this job thinking its SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT!!!!(My favorite movie)but when these guys get out here...they are jerked around at shippers and consignees....all unpaid time the truck breaksdown all unpaid ......they take these jobs not having a clue what it is to be away from home....up all hours to make an appointment...and when they get there they park them in a yard...again unpaid...not even having the decency to put them in a dock so the guy can go to sleep..expecting them to stay up till they are ready for them...then dispatch sends you pick up another load...so again no sleep....well u spent 10 hours at that stop so show it all in the sleeper and keep going...again no sleep....not to mention that they are paying what maybe 35 cpm(and i am figuring high for a new driver)getting 2000 miles a week....so lets see thats 700 a week minus taxes minus road expenses(meals)and you cant get a decent meal for less than $15 SO THEY EAT ONCE A DAY AT SUBWAY.....then lets put the high divorce rate that goes with the job....I guess i would be bitter too...but they dont understand how the business works so arent smart enough to move on....its impossible to live in a truck and support a family on 700 a week before taxes benefits and expenses....Me i was lucky I had a road job that got me home at least 2 days a week...it was dedicated paid high and paid for everything loading unloading drop and hook breakdown dot inspections fueling....and the company made money....but another carrier out bid the place i was working for and i chose to move on...Now I do complain about conway on a regular basis because they are taking from us while still showing decent profits.....if they were losing money before the cuts i would of understood but i do believe that they did all this because they could....but I am not leaving and most guys arent either...because i get paid for everything....yes i consider my self a DRIVER...been at this for over 20 years clean record no major accidents...but probably only spend 20 out of 60 hrs behind the wheel...some weeks 30/30...they have every right to be bitter but they do need to smarten up and move on....as long as a majority of drivers are willing to be abused ,,,the abuse will never end....hell anyone that ever delivered to a grocery wharehouse should of known right then and there this ISNT SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT...
 
And........take a larger, and larger percentage of the freight that used to move in pups, with Freight employees, along with it. There are lanes now that "purchase" transportation moves very close to 100% of the freight, and the distance is less than 250 miles. If I read the other companies boards correctely, most if not all of the LTL companies, are beginning to follow this model. :shift: The only place Truckload is going, is to your yard, with your freight, instead of you.

Look anyone that knows how this business works should of known this was going to happen when conway bought cfi...but the biggest problem here is most guys complain about what only affects them...not the guy under them...I havent lost one hour of work do to cfi and niether has anyone else...but when I complain(and i do alot of it) I try to keep it to what affects all not just me!!!!!here is what cfi did ..it took the long day linehaul runs from certain guys ....in chicagoland alot of the long runs were cut and the runs go to lasalle....but I am still working but not as many miles ...bottom line is the primo donna"s who have the senority to run long dont...but they are still working...its just not what THEY WANT TO DO...and yes i know with time comes the longer runs ...but the business has changed....so you cant have what dont exist anymore....so cfi hasnt taken anything from you except you cant do what you want anymore....and Ive been told this many times if you dont want to work here quit!!!!!!! When frieght starts cutting drivers and replaces them with truckload guys then complain...all you hear anymore is I have to work more dock or my newer truck went to a bottom feeder....it isnt all about you.....and this post was not a direct attack on you...I just took what you posted and ran with it
 
There's definitely an element of unrealistic expectations that plays into a lot of the OTR folks' attitudes. I agree 100% there. I think that the downside might not be as nearly as bad as you suggest though. Maybe it was that way at some point in time, but with all of the GPS data and everything else these days, nobody has ever tried to push me to do anything illegal (going on 4 years now). If I say I need ten hours to sleep, then I take ten hours to sleep.

The money has been about what I expected. This year started off like absolute garbage for about three months and it still will be in the neighborhood of $55,000. When you add in that I don't pay income tax on $12-15,000 of it in a given year, the pay is a little better than a lot of people think. When you combine this with the fact that I can take a few weeks off any time I feel like it, for no reason other than that I feel like it, the job works pretty well for a guy like me. For guys with a family it's a whole other ballgame. Unless you just hate being around the wife and kids, I'm not sure that this would be any way to earn a living.

I know that you and I have talked about some of this pay stuff before and after watching your boss' latest video on the web portal there, holy moly. The bitterness about lost wages and such would certainly seem warranted. Seems like a snake oil salesman to me. That whole two-quarter 95% deal is costing me money too, for what it's worth. The fact that the second quarter hit 96% (excluding the charge) reminds of the Michael Keaton movie where they almost made 1,000 cars but came up a little short, so they got nothing from their Japanese bosses.

What I run into out here isn't really bitterness about anything real. It's more a matter of people getting treated rudely by a shipper or a dispatcher and then spending the next day and a half *****ing about it and lying about everything to make the point more dramatic. Those rumors mentioned earlier and the 100's of others that fly around would be a pretty good example. If I need someone to treat me with respect and stroke my ego, I'll hire a shrink. As long as they put the freight in my trailer and hand me a seal, I can take care of the rest. I think that people would have a lot more respect for the way people do this job if so many of my colleagues didn't feel inclined to embellish every story. Maybe not. I don't know.

Anyhow, get out there and ask for one more shipment. I could handle getting my extra retirement contributions back. :thumbsup:
 
Old story

Just brings back old times, remember CFI is under the menlo banner, ( holding company ), and CON-way Freight is an operating company. Where have I heard this before?
 
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