Trucking and the Freight Cycle

On Sunday 30 July 2023 Yellow Corporation, one of the largest less-than-truckload carriers in the United States, stopped operating. About 30,000 people lost their jobs within days, about 22,000 of them members of the Teamsters union (reported). A week later, on 6 August, the company filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware. It had roots in a taxi and freight business in Oklahoma City in 1924, had bought Roadway Express in 2003 and USF in 2005, survived the 2008–11 crisis on union concessions and debt-for-equity swaps, and in July 2020 borrowed $700 million from the US Treasury under the CARES Act, which took about 29.6% of its shares. In the decade before its failure it had reported operating ratios in the high 90s for most years (reported): of each dollar of revenue it kept two to five cents before interest, too little to replace trucks, pay down debt and fund pensions at once.

The end came through a plan meant to save it. Under "One Yellow", from 2021, the company tried to merge its national network with its regional carriers, Holland, New Penn and Reddaway, which in many cities ran separate terminals for the same company. Changing how freight moved between terminals required the agreement of the Teamsters under the national master agreement, and after the first phase the union refused the second. Yellow sued the union in June 2023, missed benefit contributions, and received a strike notice in July. Its customers did not wait for a strike. LTL shippers hand over a few pallets on a promise of a delivery date, and as the headlines grew they moved their freight to other carriers within days; Yellow's shipments collapsed before any picket line was formed. Estimates of the freight it shed differ, from about 30,000 shipments a day (FreightWaves) to 40,000–50,000.

The bankruptcy then showed what Yellow had been worth. Its terminals, one of the largest LTL networks in the country, were the asset every rival wanted, because new truck terminals in major cities are almost impossible to build. In September 2023 Old Dominion Freight Line offered about $1.5 billion for the whole portfolio, and Estes became the lead bidder at $1.525 billion; Old Dominion withdrew, citing valuations, and bought nothing. Sold in pieces to about 21 buyers, the first round raised about $1.88 billion for 130 properties: XPO paid about $870 million for 28, Estes about $248.7 million for 24, Saia about $244 million for about 28 including leases, and Knight-Swift about $51 million for 13 (reported). The Treasury was repaid in full, with more than $151 million of interest, on 5 February 2024. The estate then lost its fight over about $6.5 billion of multi-employer pension withdrawal-liability claims, confirmed a liquidating plan on 17 November 2025 and spent 2026 settling with the pension funds, while its suit against the Teamsters, dismissed in March 2024, was revived by the Tenth Circuit on 5 November 2025. Yellow's creditors were paid from real estate. Its business had been worth less than its buildings.