Can't argue the high cost/profitability point of view, but mainly from a marketing viewpoint, it's inevitable that they'll expand there.
In orderfor them to be a legitimate player, they'll have to offer that service to their customer base. Like many carriers, the large, multi location national accounts have the need to get there products into that area. The consumer base is just too huge to ignore.
Imagine them trying to compete with a current full-service national ltl company at a large national account. Why would a corp TM bring in a carrier who can do alot but not all of his points when he's got at least 10 carriers who will?
Ltl carriers struggle to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. You have the large nationals such as Yellow, UPS, CCX, Fedex. They go everywhere for just about everybody.
You then have regional players who market some sort of special service/price/regional-local adavantage.
Where does Saia fit? My opinion, based on the aggressive growth strategy is that they will try to populate the 1st group.
