The news: Three of the largest US less-than-truckload carriers reported August volumes on the same morning. Each is growing a different kind of freight.
Old Dominion’s shipments per day fell 2.4% from a year earlier. They have fallen for more than a year, and the company has raised prices the whole time.
Saia’s shipments rose 1.1%. Its average shipment got 7.5% heavier, after a July rate increase aimed at the light freight it did not want at the old price.
XPO’s shipments rose 5.7%, and its average shipment got lighter again. It is charging more per hundredweight than a year ago.
None of this started in August. Each carrier has been on its course since at least last fall, and this was the first month all three published on the same day.
For shippers heading into fall bids, each carrier has now said which freight it wants and which it is willing to lose.
By the numbers:
Old Dominion’s shipment count has fallen year over year in every reading since August 2025, though the drop has narrowed from 9.7% in the fourth quarter to 2.4% now. Revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel rose between 4.1% and 5.5% in every one of those periods.
XPO’s shipments turned positive around January and have grown every month since, while its average shipment has been lighter than a year earlier in 10 straight readings.
Saia’s average shipment has been heavier every month since April. Its shipment growth slowed from 5.6% to 1.1% over the same stretch.
The details: Old Dominion has not cut price, and it is still adding capacity. CFO Adam Satterfield said on the second quarter call that the carrier’s pricing comes from “the balance of national account versus your small mom and pop” business, and from “higher priority services.” He put spare capacity in the network at more than 35%. The company is spending $380 million this year, $180 million of it on real estate. CEO Marty Freeman said in the August release that Old Dominion has “all the necessary elements of capacity in place to support volume growth as the business environment evolves.”
Saia raised prices on its lightest freight. CFO Matt Batteh said on the second quarter call that the 7.1% general rate increase in July was applied “granularly based on lanes and weight per shipment mix,” with “a heavy emphasis on making sure that we’re getting paid correctly on some of those lighter-weighted shipments.” Contract renewals ran 10.7% in the quarter. Its shipment growth has slowed since, and its average shipment has gotten heavier. Even so, Saia’s own revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel fell 2.2% in the quarter.
XPO is adding lighter shipments without discounting for them. Its revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel rose 4.4% in the second quarter, close to Old Dominion’s 5.5%. In its quarterly filing, XPO credited service improvements and pricing initiatives. Its average shipment weighed 1,311 pounds in the quarter, against 1,503 at Old Dominion.
The backdrop: LTL rates have kept rising through the slowdown. AFS Logistics and TD Cowen project the LTL rate per pound index will reach a record 76.8% above its January 2018 baseline in the third quarter, up 5.9% from a year earlier.
The carriers built through it. Saia has added 33 terminals since 2022 and relocated or expanded more than 25 others, about $1 billion of real estate. Old Dominion is still buying property with more than a third of its network unused. Demand has not kept up with that building, and each carrier is choosing which freight to run through the space it has.
The two do not agree on what is happening around them. Freeman said on Old Dominion’s second quarter call that truckload freight was “starting to spill back over in a small way to the LTL environment.” On Saia’s call, Batteh said the company was not “seeing any huge TL spillover by any means.”
The counter:
The heavier-freight pattern stops at these three carriers. Weight per shipment across the industry fell in the second quarter, according to the same TD Cowen/AFS index, which tied it to soft industrial and manufacturing demand.
XPO is the exception inside the group. The company’s average shipment has been lighter for 10 straight readings while its shipment count grew, the opposite of what Saia and Old Dominion are reporting.
Wolfe Research doubts Saia is getting paid for the change. “It’s been flat to down the last four or five quarters,” analyst Scott Group said on the company’s second quarter call, referring to realized price. “You go back 10 years, you never had a single negative quarter.”
Saia’s August had an easier base. Its tonnage per workday fell 2.2% in August 2025 but rose 0.9% in July 2025, so this August’s 8.7% gain is measured against a weaker month.
What’s next: ArcBest files its July and August operating update in early September, the last of the four to report. On its second quarter call, it said ABF Freight’s daily tonnage was running 8% above a year earlier, with weight per shipment up 11% and shipments down 3%. It also said revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel had fallen in the low single digits, the same direction Saia’s has moved.
