Fedex Custom Critical...worth while or waste of money?

What did you find out?

 

We have a few more months under our belt now - and a few more tractors as well. We add our third with FedEx in a week and our first with Panther on Monday. I'll be at the expedite expo tomorrow if anyone is going. And numbers wise - not that this is the 'norm' ... but in June, one of our tractors at FedEx grossed $44,000 for the month. Normally - we are seeing between $29,000 and $34,000 consistently now with our two tractors pulling reefer at Custom Critical. It is not uncommon for teams in tractors to gross $300,000 to the truck. I know a few solos even at Panther grossing more than $200,000 to the truck. Mind you - my teams elect to stay on the road almost 8 weeks at a time as well.

V/r

Rob

 

Well I just got over here and no one will talk about money at all. Me personally I wish I had never came here. There nice people , but the money is not so great like everyone claims it to be. So far me and my partner have spent more money to start over here then we have made. If you're current company is doing you right stay put. The fact the entire orientation money could and would not be discussed red f..king flag. The loads they have had us on have not paid great I got better rates running off my old brokers. So far I don't see the money it doesn't seem to be what it was before where guys were making 10 to 12 k a week. So fyi if you do come make sure you have at least a 1000 bucks to get started over here. I will update in another week. Also you have to wait 2 weeks b4 you get paid.

 

Fedex CC and Panther are my competition on some expedite loads from a certain broker. They beat me by several hundred dollars any time they are available. Expedite rates have been down for a couple of years now. Way down. Not even worth the hassle you can do much better on ordinary freight that is urgent. That particular broker told me they were his expensive options until he turns to me. My rates are decent but nothing to get excited over and not as good as they were a few years ago.

 

Expedite rates have been done for more than 10 years now.

 

When you say you have to wait two weeks for pay, are operating your own truck? I just had a tractor pulling a reefer on flat rate at FDCC gross $40,200 in March on 9 loads. We're up to 7 tractors between FedEx and Panther and are we constantly busy - no - but we aren't complaining. Gone are the Robert's Express days ... we've just accepted that.

 

Probably longer. From working spot freight since 2011 I did mostly excess expedited TL during 2012-2014 and I did a lot of open up your checkbook loads. It was, for me, a good time to be working the segment.

Hell I had entire weeks of that one after another and getting home at least every other night. It was a lot better than it is now. Lots of better than round trip rates. It was heady stuff. Didnt realize how crazy that was until the here and now reality check with the benefit of hindsight. Something that taught me though was to always be aggressive and you never know when the corner will turn and times like that are here again.

Those opportunities are rare for the past two years. They'll get loads at 15:00 with a pickup that night delivering straight through the next day and cover them for similar to general freight ordinary rates. Rediculous when not that long ago it would have easily commanded 3x or 4x or even more than that.

And to think I used to do some stellar loads from FedexCC and Panther every now and then back in those days. Now they are picking off the same rare brokered scraps of that freight that I am.

But the overall point is right now expedited really sucks. Not for any of the megas who have it all though. Just for the operators leased or otherwise out there competing against each other grinding it to nothing.

 

Expediting is a strange we have two pharma customers that we do "expediting" work for and we get the call when FCC and Panther miss the pick ups, it really depends on which areas you are running from. Most of these loads pay round trip to the expediter and by the time it trickles down the contractor its a one way rate.