All American Xpress

First off let me say that as far as I know, no one was ever "warned" that the company would get to the point of having trucks repossessed. Issues in the past have been with fuel networks and as far as I know and have experienced, we have never had issues with payroll or reimbursements for OTR expenses. Fuel accounts were only cut off for short periods of time (hours) as it was obvious the cash flow within the company was at the "rob Peter to pay Paul" stage a few times. The corruption that was occuring has supposedly been removed from the company, but as I understand the scuttlebutt, it was one of the former CEOs who had a hand in directing repo people to target one of our satellite yards.
Fuel accounts are shifting again to another resource and as of today, driver's were able to access pre-approved comchecks to pay 'cash' for fuel purchases.
Rigs are still coming and going at the yard, frieght is still moving. The company IS NOT shutting down as far as I have seen and heard today.
The repo may have been an effort to make a point as their effort was not sustained other than the initial arrival of the repo crew who took, with AAX permission, 7 trucks off the Florida yard (another 2 dozen rigs that were there were not targeted). Many of those taken were those that were to have been turned in last month as I previously reported - I think that is where the issue lay - we were to turn in trucks, get new ones, but the dealer did not deliver the new ones, and the now fired CEO simply did not keep the payments on those rigs current for the month. There were only 4 trucks, mine among them, that had driver's belongings in them, all the others from both sites were empty.

The more I hear people talk, the more it seems that this is a business decision to put AAX in bankruptcy protection so the new company can establish itself while Jamal fights the corporate fight with his former partners. Most if not all of the equipment has the name of the now fired CEOs on the leases. While its not pretty, I'm going to keep an optimistic look toward the next month (May 2 is the target date for getting the new company up and running - it already has its authority and several new trucks are here, lettered, and operating). I guess the real test will be if our payroll is met for the next two weeks and if my paychecks include reimbursement for expenses (such as my motel, food, clothes, and cost of getting our personal belongings back). My possessions are at a minimum as I have been ready to leave for the last 2 months (2 weeks of clothes in a suitcase, my laptop, cooler, and tools) but it doesn't help much when its all locked behind a fence!
Currently 3 additional trucks are being readied for service presumably for those of us who lost our stuff yesterday - but I have told them I am going home to Tennessee and will call them next week to see if they have the equipment ready, have a seat open, and have the customer base to allow me to continue the Florida to the Pacific Northwest runs that AAX has specialized in for about 7 years now.

Many AAX drivers have already put the word out to others (since management is trying to keep it under wraps - I just laugh and tell the guys, um, I've been posting about the company online at the truckersreport for 5 months now, LOL!).

I'll post more if I hear more, but all day long we were only told that the 'lawyers' were still negotiating the financial matters so that AAX won't have to worry about having more trucks taken. As far as I know, it is only the 4 of us, out of about 125 drivers, who were caught in the power play and lost our rigs without warning.bb.

 

no further news today - no resolution to getting the repo'd trucks back and the repo people said they have a list of all 127 rigs. I still dont see them having any way to get more tractors short of sitting at a local truck stop and hoping an AAX driver scales out and when he goes in for the ticket they take his rig - but, they also say they do not want the responsibility of taking a loaded trailer, so that is even more unlikely. Since my truck is repo'd I don't know if any company wide warning has gone out to the other drivers (such as be sure to fuel before coming into FLA so you can come down, drop, hook, and get out again without the need for a fuel stop). Repo people (place called "Howards Recovery" on 98 North in Lakeland), say they failed to get any rigs from the ATL yard when two of their men got locked in the unmanned drop lot and had to spend the night there til another AAX driver came and opened it up for them, LOL!
Myself and one of the other drivers involved got our stuff from our trucks today and I left the Lakeland yard and came home. They couldn't give me any assurance that they could get me in another truck by Monday. Will call them at the end of next week for an update and if still no truck I will look elsewhere (unless they say the new rigs are still on schedule for early May, then I'll be willing to stretch my break one more week).
Company has paid for motel, layover and the repo charge for us to get our gear back so other than the lost wages for the week, no other financial issues at the company that I'm aware of - trucks continuing to come and go, local drivers continuing to shuttle trailers to and from Publix and CocaCola in Lakeland and Leesburg.
Will have to wait and see if the final shoe drops or if things get put back together again.

 

two problems - one, they are not bottom feeders - they offer miles that are unmatched by any other company I have ever heard of in 15 years - 3000 mile average length of haul for solos? show me better. Pay is low, yes, but pay was what was my first complaint was until I did the math, any other national firm giving you 40cpm but only 2200 miles per week which includes an average of 650 mile length of haul requiring 7 warehouse stops per week (uncompensated of course) is more of a bottom feeder.
second - bottom feeder suggests an outfit that takes on rookies and drivers with questionable backgrounds yet AAX has, until the recent management meltdown, had a waiting list of months and even years because of their small size despite a reputation for running drivers hard. (I applied 2 years before I was called up after the big shake up in late 2010) - though I don't know a lot of the drivers, most I have met have been on board for several years, not a symptom of an outfit that is suffering high turnover especially given the small size of the company (used to be 200, but trimmed down to about 125 in the past 2 years).
The AAX of today, is nothing like it was just 1 year ago. The issues dragging them down at this time stem from corruption among the management and have nothing to do with treatment of drivers even though I will admit that the drivers are not treated professionally.
I think trying to use the bottom feeder to denigrate AAX just shows you dont know any historical info about the firm.

 

Jlind :
I think you are right, not calling you was because they knew at the time that they really didn't have open seats to offer. Of course they need to have a pool of applicants to work with so always want to encourage qualified drivers to submit applications.
On the other hand, just a few weeks ago, everything was looking up as they thought we were adding brand new trucks to the fleet thus would have needed to fill the older trucks. Also to complicate things they have been trying to work back towards a more team oriented outfit probably because they just logistically can't keep repowering loads between teams and solos which is required by the nature of the east bound loads (produce) needing 4 day delivery while the west bound (juice) loads are often 6/7 day loads. Putting in teams is opening one truck per team.
Your interest also came at the time that there were serious shakeups going on in management and not even the shop was certain (and this is still true this week) what the situation was with how many trucks are staying in service, how many to be replaced, and how many need repairs and to what extent. (and how many were about to be repossessed, BADA - BING!)
I've heard Kathy talk to potential applicants on the phone so I kind of know why you would say someone was "positive" when speaking to you. She obviously wants to encourage the applicant to continue with the process but at the same time cannot express to someone outside the company any problems that might slow or derail an application process. Kathy was still sending out apps yesterday.