panther new board positions

xiggi

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
i hope you and your drivers keep taking the sucker loads so us money makers can keep making money. i'll guarantee you your revenue wouldn't come close to my truck.

Just an observance but someone making a large amount of money would not normally be to concerned about getting 55% of a settlement a few days later than the first 45%. IMHO
 

mjolnir131

Veteran Expediter
Just an observance but someone making a large amount of money would not normally be to concerned about getting 55% of a settlement a few days later than the first 45%. IMHO

Nor probably running below 67% i would imagine, your minimum daily operating cost would be eating up way to much.

Just for example you sit 2 day and get a run that nets you 300 after fuel and your daily average expense is 100 no matter what you just made 0 dollar's.Thats just a simple example YMMV.
 

miguy1957

Expert Expediter
I cant really believe the number of people that are OK with Panthers newest rule change. I guess yall are Ok with taking a undesireable or money losing load just to keep you numbers up.. So its Ok if you run into an area that has alot of underdesireable loads and you have only been only getting 2-3 load offers a week. Thats only 12/ month and you get offered 4 bad loads in a row, Bam!! you are below 67% and no more load offers . Now you are out of Business or have to find a new Carrier or sit out 30days to reset your acceptance, all the while paying your QC and Ins payments. And a lot of you are OK with that.............Unbeliveable..............I kind of like being in charge of what loads I take and what I turn down makes me feel like Im running my Business and not their Employee.
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red head Webcams
 
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davekc

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Fleet Owner
If you REALLY want to run your own business, when you finish a load, just take yourself out of service. Then book your own load and your percentage will be just fine.
We are in the 80/90 range, and we don't run anything that we can't make money on.
Nothing really has changed. If your percentages were bad, they were loading around you long before this ever came up.
They are just being more up front about it now.
 

miguy1957

Expert Expediter
If you REALLY want to run your own business, when you finish a load, just take yourself out of service. Then book your own load and your percentage will be just fine.
We are in the 80/90 range, and we don't run anything that we can't make money on.
Nothing really has changed. If your percentages were bad, they were loading around you long before this ever came up.
They are just being more up front about it now.





Its not as easy to find your own load in a Cargo Van.. My point is that anyone can have a string of undesireable load offers and they are trying to force you into taking them or the threat of being offered nothing. I am just suprised how many people are OK with it.
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RAPSSODY
 
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Tempest

Seasoned Expediter
Exactly Dave. My drivers were told months ago their numbers would get them load faster than their board position in this climate. It amazes me the number of people who cant read the writing on the walls until they are buried under the rubble of it.
 

Tempest

Seasoned Expediter
So are controversial post before 10 posts but this one made it through. I guess nobody reads the TOS these days
 

pjjjjj

Veteran Expediter
I know I should just stay out of this, since we're not with Panther, but well, this isn't in the Panther Forum..
Let me take a stab at this from my devil's advocate, not-personally-affected position of an outside perspective.

So Panther has 4 trucks in a given area. They also have way too many trucks than they need at this time. They want to spread the wealth as much as possible, to keep it fair, which is... only fair. They have an order they go in, whatever it is.. you're next on the list.. it just so happens, it's not a rose. But it's still at your rate. They offer it to you in good faith, being next on the list, as they are supposed to.. you freak out because it's a shortie with too much deadhead. You decline the opportunity. Thankfully they have 3 other trucks to try. One of them takes it.. perhaps they end up getting one of those cooked gooses as a result. You just don't know. Meanwhile, you can sit and complain about only getting 2 loads per month, while your fixed costs keep clicking away.

If Panther didn't have those other trucks to offer the load to, what then? Time is lost in posting the load, and dealing with an outside entity. Maybe they lose yet another customer over it.

Things are not normal right now. Everyone has to work together til it turns around. If you can't afford to do that, park your truck til it does turn around. Take yourself out of service. There's nothing worse to a carrier than booking a load when they have trucks available, only to find they really don't have trucks available.

It's not right, the freight should pay better, the deadhead should be covered, you should get good loads in return for doing bad ones, favors should be remembered, there should be more freight for the amount of trucks available. What can they do?

Seems one thing they can do is reduce the amount of available trucks. So they pick the ones who let them down 33% of the time, and stop giving them freight for awhile. In effect, they're being nice by not saying, 'goodbye', and instead, simply penalizing them, and rewarding the ones that say 'yes'.

Everyone has talked on here for ages about the fact you must have reserves for the downtimes. Now is such a time. Use your reserves to carry you through the dog loads in the hope of getting the goose loads as a result, or park your truck, or admit defeat. If you try, and you cooperate, and you use your reserves to the point you don't want to use any more, and it's still not working for you, basically that means it's game over. Reality bites.
 

Bruno

Veteran Expediter
Fleet Owner
US Marines
No, the reason that the load advance went down to 45% is because the cost of fuel has went down. There is no need to load that much on to a drivers card. One of our drivers had over $3000.00 built up on his card. The comdata cards are to be used for fuel not to pay people or to be used as a bank.

I can't believe your accepting of the fact that you have to wait for your money you've earned. Nobody in their right mind waits for their money if they have the choice of getting more up front, NOBODY. 55% down to 45% is an insult and Panther doesn't give a flying fukk about the driver.

It's the same way at FedEx Custom Critical. So I guess all those drivers are out of their minds too. If you can't run a truck on 45% you need to get out of the business. Based on a $1.20 per mile that is .54 per mile to run on. Even if you paid $2.50 a mile for fuel and got 7 mpg, you would only need .36 to run on. Thats .18 cent left over before you get your TA discount. look at the bright side you will have 10% in your settlements each week.
 

cruzer

Not a Member
I must be missin out on something by working with a small carrier but when I read all of these post about how much do you make takeing sucker loads and how much I make pickin and choosin I had to go back and refresh my memory,by takeing every load ever offered me I've or I should say we've done very well and I don't mind shareing. Our first full year 140,000 gross to the truck and 180,000 our second year and things were a little slow toward the end of this past year and we went down to 160,000 but I don't think thats bad for greenhorns at a small carrier and I'm sure you big carrier drivers may have better numbers than us but is it worth all the stress you seem to be under.some seem to be happy with the changes goin on others well ,,,,,,I should just leave well enough alone.Hope you guys and gals get it all worked out,good luck.
 

Bruno

Veteran Expediter
Fleet Owner
US Marines
This is a Panther thread and I seldom talk about competing carriers in the Open Forum (seldom meaning a low percentage of my posts, probably a single-digit percentage). I jump into this thread this time, only to ask a specific question about something Bruno touched on. I do not jump in to in any way discourage people from Panther.



As an industry observer, I would love to know how you know that Fenway Partners has very deep pockets. As I understand it, Fenway is a private equity company that is not required to publicly disclose its numbers. Many private equity companies have been devastated by the stock market crash and credit crisis. How do you know Fenway has or has not also been similarly affected?

I am not saying you are wrong. I am asking, how do you know? I am asking how you know because I would like to develop the same information source if possible.

Some time ago, Fenway prepared to do a Panther IPO and released some very good and informative information about Panther which was posted on the Securities and Exchange Commission web site as part of the public disclosure process. I was sad to see the IPO not go forward because the public information flow ceased.

Express-1 is a publicly-held company and I find their reports to be great reading. If you have a way of knowing how Fenway is doing and what it is doing, I would love to know what that way is. Information gained would be useful to any student of the expediting industry; veterans, rookies and wannabees alike.

Bruno, you are saying the private equity firm Fenway Partners has very deep pockets. If you please, would you be so kind as to share how you know?


Phil

I can't really say that have very deep pockets that I have seen myself. I can only go by what I have been told by Davekc and Leo over the years. I think DaveKc can get you what your looking for. Sorry I should have said from what I have been told Panther has Deep pockets. I have been told that FedEx has very deep pockets too, but I have never seen for myself. That don't mean they don't. Thats all.
 

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
Phil

I can't really say that have very deep pockets that I have seen myself. I can only go by what I have been told by DaveKC and Leo over the years. I think DaveKC can get you what your looking for. Sorry I should have said from what I have been told Panther has Deep pockets. I have been told that FedEx has very deep pockets too, but I have never seen for myself. That don't mean they don't. Thats all.

It is not the "over the years" part that I am wondering about. It is the present. Trucking companies are dropping like flies. Expediting companies are seriously challenged and some have failed. At least some private equity companies have failed. I know of few asset classes that have gone up in value in recent months and stayed there.

Fenway is a private equity company known to have a portfolio of trucking companies. How they have been affected in recent times is unknown because it is a private company. That is why I was curious. If you had a way to make the unknown known, I would be interested.

So, until more is known, Bruno, are you still willing to assert that Fenway has deep pockets? And if so, on what basis?

As for FedEx, I am willing to make the assertion. A look at their public data verifies deep pockets. Revenues are down but deep pockets remain.

That means nothing for FedEx Custom Critical. Custom Critical's future existence is only as stable as the parent company chooses to make it, whether the economy is growing or shrinking, whether FDCC is making money or not, whether the freight recession continues or abates.

FDCC has been in the FedEx family for a long time and has gone through periods of weakness. FedEx did not dump it then and I do not expect FedEx to dump it now.

As for the morphing of FDCC into other FedEx division or doing the same with FDCC services, it could happen in theory but I see no reason to expect that it will. FedEx already has ways of moving LTL and truckload freight and moving it fast. The unique, exclusive-use and high-value freight transport value proposition that FDCC offers is just that, unique. FDCC adds in-house capabilities to the FedEx family of companies that FedEx would not have without FDCC. Therefore, I remain confident that the FDCC service offerings will continue.

Notice what FedEx did with Passport Transport when it acquired it. The new addition to the FedEx family of companies was placed under FDCC. That is hardly a sign that FDCC has no future with FedEx as some like to imply.

It has already happened that FDCC was moved to another division. That happened a while back when FDCC was put under FedEx Freight. Impact to contractors? None of significance that Diane and I saw. Our relationship with FDCC and reasons for staying were unchanged.
 

Desperado

Seasoned Expediter
About time Panther did something with the nose pickers I as a single have been doing better than teams in our fleet and yep running a lot of loads that suck bite and down right nasty
 

brandi323

Seasoned Expediter
About time Panther did something with the nose pickers I as a single have been doing better than teams in our fleet and yep running a lot of loads that suck bite and down right nasty
well whose gonna start running the crappy loads you've been taking?teams i guess. some how that seems less loads will be offered to you. whose gonna be picking there nose now?
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
No, the reason that the load advance went down to 45% is because the cost of fuel has went down. There is no need to load that much on to a drivers card. One of our drivers had over $3000.00 built up on his card. The comdata cards are to be used for fuel not to pay people or to be used as a bank.

I can't believe your accepting of the fact that you have to wait for your money you've earned. Nobody in their right mind waits for their money if they have the choice of getting more up front, NOBODY. 55% down to 45% is an insult and Panther doesn't give a blank about the driver.

What have YOU been smoking?? Who gets paid right away for their loads? No one....55% is unnecessary....with diesel below 2 bucks...

And they get interest? Have you seen interest rates lately?

They have people to pay and other carriers and just plain overhead....

Com data is a perk...it can be taken away anytime they chose....you should be lucky you get anything....
 
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