Q1 2024

Introduction
Ah, nothing like the silent, yet ever-present creep of anxiety brought by the end of a business quarter.  That’s right, we’re already in March!  The end of Q1 2024 is fast approaching, and as we hurdle toward the season of budding leaves, flowers, and angry C-Suite executives, it’s time for a slightly-more-than surface level analysis of the freight market in Q1 2024.  It seems as though the freight market is finally stabilizing after it was thrown into disarray by the pandemic. 

FTL
Starting with Q4 2023, FTL demand grew by 0.3%.  Not much, but it is a start.  This increase in demand for full truckloads helped to close the gap between supply and demand in the freight market by 30%, although there is still a large gap between them, even with the improvements. 

LTL
Now, on to LTL.  We’ve talked a lot about this in these blog posts, but the closure of Yellow Trucking, which was over 100 years old at the time of its bankruptcy, had an almost insurmountable impact on the LTL market in the latter half of 2023.  Now though, about six months later, things seem to have evened out.  Due to the amount of excess supply there has been in the LTL market, Yellow’s impact (or lack thereof) did not have as much of a negative effect as it potentially could have. 

Conclusion
Overall, Q1 2024 shows a light at the end of the tunnel after an incredibly hectic start to the 2020s decade.  At this time, collaboration, pricing, and streamlining of operations should be focused on.  Hopefully, as the year goes on, things will go from “looking up” to just… “up.” 

–Jack

Works Cited:

Freight market update: Q1 – February 2024 (uberfreight.com)