Covenant Transportation Group Inc. said that for the quarter, total revenue increased 3.6 percent, to $192.9 million from $186.3 million in the same quarter of 2006.
Freight revenue, which excludes fuel surcharges,
increased 0.1 percent, to $159.5 million in the 2007 quarter from $159.3 million in the 2006 quarter. The company measures freight revenue because management believes that fuel surcharges tend to be a volatile source of revenue and the removal of such surcharges affords a more consistent basis for comparing results of operations from period to period.
For the year ended Dec. 31, total revenue increased 4.2 percent, to $712.5 million in 2007 from $683.8 million during 2006. Freight revenue increased 5.3 percent, to $602.6 million in 2007 from $572.2 million in 2006.
Chairman, President and CEO David R. Parker, said, "Trucking capacity in our industry continued to outstrip freight demand during the fourth quarter. Overall truck tonnage declined and, at Covenant, we saw customer bid requests more than double versus the third quarter of 2007, and increase more than 200 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2006.
"The competitive freight market was evident in our average freight revenue per loaded mile, which declined slightly both sequentially from the third quarter of 2007 and compared with the fourth quarter of 2006. In addition, freight brokers supplied a slightly higher percentage of our loads in the fourth quarter of 2007 as compared to both the third quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2006."