Affected by weak tonnage levels and a competitive pricing environment, Saia posted second quarter losses of $1.7 million and a 21 percent decrease in revenue.


"Second quarter margins deteriorated compared to the prior year quarter reflecting tonnage and yield declines," said Rick O'Dell, president and CEO. "This is due to the weak shipping environment and lower yields impacted by increasingly competitive pricing pressure."

The company's losses per share for the quarter amounted to $0.13, compared to earnings per share of $0.46 and net income of $5.3 million for the year-ago quarter. Revenue dropped to $218 million. Operating loss was $0.4 million, while the second quarter of 2008 saw operating income of $10.9 million.

"In addition, self insured costs for health care and accident severity resulted in higher expense in the second quarter of 2009," O'Dell said.

Less-than-truckload tonnage fell 6.2 percent, while LTL shipments per workday declined three percent with a 3.4 percent drop in weight per shipment. Saia's LTL yield slipped 14.5 percent from the second quarter of 2008. The company attributes the drops to the reduction in fuel surcharges and competitive pricing.

In an effort to mitigate some of the economic loss, the company reduced compensation by 10 percent of salary for the leadership team and five percent for hourly, linehaul and salaried workers in operations, maintenance and administration. This was implemented on April 1, 2009.

"We continue to address the current challenging environment by taking aggressive actions to control costs and improve productivity through focused engineered initiatives," O'Dell said.