Swift O/O and L/O - How much do they make?

I don't know about at the academy, but I haven't been asked once about leasing a truck... Been here with swift for 8-9 months now... Id get two three years under your belt before leasing. Learn the freight routes, ins and outs. Save up for as big of a down payment as possible... A failure to plan usually leads to a plan to failure. One big draw to Lease programs, people approach it with too much emotion and not enough business experience.

 

All I've been reading here about L/O's is how they get negative statements each month instead of settlements .
The net for O/O's varies considerably .

 

Some make money and some don't, just like any other biz.
Stay away from a lease, if ya really gotta drive your own truck then save up and buy it.
Lot of O/O or L/O don't make much more than a co. driver when you add in the risks ya gotta ask yourself is it worth it?

 

I would guesstimate the average pay is between $0.40-$0.50 cents per mile for the Swift Lease Operator. That's gross pay by the way. Hold back an appropriate amount for taxes and maintenance (tires, oil changes etc). Pretty soon you're down in the low $0.30's cents per mile range, perhaps lower.

L/O's who take students give up an additional $0.05 cents per mile while the student is on the truck. If any L/O goes over 11,000 miles in a month's time they give up an additional $0.09 cents per mile.

This pretty much levels the playing field among the different options available to the L/O (solo, mentor, team).

If there is an upside to the low pay, it is that the taxes are low, and with new equipment the L/O can usually keep maintenance harnessed in the $0.05 cents per mile range while setting aside $0.10 cents to slam dunk it.

There's no direct pressure to lease, just indirect pressure like:

No Idling no matter how hot
Fuel where we tell you
A/C broken? take it to the nearest terminal along the route-- 3 days out? Too bad
Forced dispatch
No pets
The list goes on and on

 

Been with Swift over 6 years. I never received any q/c messages about leasing until I went on the shuttle 6 months ago when my mileage stayed constantly above 2800 per week. It's easy to get that many miles when you do the same thing every day. When I was OTR I averaged about 2100 per week. They weren't interested in me then, but honestly I wasn't interested in leasing either and I was good with those miles. Oh yeah, you can't be an O/O or L/O and do what I do, company daycabs only! In the last 2 months I have gotten 2 messages saying I now qualify to make the jump to truck ownership.

 

I believe you can make fair money,

if you team,

train,

or recruit.

 

In my opinion, teaming would be the worst option for the Swift lease operator. If they ran 22,000 miles in a month the final 11,000 miles would be docked by $0.09 cents per mile. Average it out over the whole month these 2 drivers made $0.045 cents less per mile than the solo operator who ran 11,000 miles.

Training can be a double edged sword. First you're losing $0.05 cents for every mile while the student is aboard. Lose an additional $0.09 cents per mile past 11,000 miles in the month. So the first 50 hours, student doesn't drive. Basically solo for $0.05 cents less than the comparable solo driver. Then if you get a good student over the next remaining weeks of the month you will lose up to a total of $0.14 cents per mile over the solo L/O. Granted, the $0.09 goes into a fund that can be used to purchase the truck at the end of the lease, but think about the massive amount of miles these team and trainer trucks will have at the end.... warranties will be expired.

The lease operator can make it work but has to remember there basically is a fixed limit to how much the truck can earn per week,month year etc. The L/O would have to figure out how much their total fixed budget it for the time period plus variable costs and determine if the mean (average) miles projected/expected will cover those expenses and leave a little profit or not.

 

The first 50 hours ONLY the student drives... My suggestion as a Swift driver? Keep the hell away from swift, they do everything they can to make the drivers life hell, in the name of safety and efficiency of course