While Pacer International saw better year-over-year results during the first quarter, the asset-light transportation and logistics services provider still reported a loss of $0.5 million, up from a loss of $177.4 million in the 2009 quarter.
However, revenues were up $5.1 million to $363.7 million in the first quarter, compared to $358.6 million for the 2009 period.

The company's income from operations increased $223.7 million to $0.6 million from a loss of $223.1 million in the 2009 quarter.

"We are encouraged by our performance during the first quarter of 2010 given that the economic environment continued to be challenging, particularly during the first half of the quarter," said John J. Hafferty, chief financial officer of Pacer. "Pacer's operating income and cash flow remained positive for the quarter and improved significantly compared to the first quarter of 2009."

Pacer's intermodal segment saw income from operations rise to $5.7 million compared to an operating loss of $183.6 million in the year-ago quarter.

The company's logistics segment reported an operating loss of $0.3 million compared to a loss of $34.7 million in the 2009 quarter.

"We made changes within our executive leadership team to facilitate our ongoing transformation and are pleased with the 11.2 percent growth in our retail intermodal volume during the first quarter of 2010 versus the first quarter of 2009," said Daniel W. Avramovich, chairman and CEO of Pacer. "Pacer is well positioned for future growth without significantly increasing the size of our organization due to productivity enhancing initiatives that have been and continue to be implemented."