Trucking executives detailed how they expect the current environment and their ongoing strategy will carry on into 2027 and propel further business gains.
Company leaders discussed opportunities during Q3 earnings calls amid recent increases in pricing, adding they expected conditions and strategies to hold next year. They noted trucking companies’ own discipline to not chase freight, and there’s less competition due to federal regulatory enforcement and driver restrictions.
While less-than-truckload has had softer volumes, LTL executives also highlighted the pricing gains, with XPO leadership saying that pricing trend is expected to continue.
Here’s what carrier executives had to say about their freight market expectations.
ArcBest CEO and President Seth Runser
“We're really encouraged by what we're seeing as we move through the fourth quarter. The environment is obviously still mixed, but there's more positive indicators today, and we're seeing some of those early green shoots across our business,” Runser said on a Nov. 4 earns call when asked about underlying demand.
“We're seeing some encouraging activity across several of our verticals, building materials, automotive, food service, 3PL,” he said in another portion of his response. He added that the company itself is creating some of that momentum “ourselves through just better service to our customers, stronger customer relationships and improved commercial execution.”
He added that “as we look forward to 2027, we're not assuming a significant freight recovery, but we're seeing some early signs that are encouraging.”
Covenant Logistics Group CFO James “Tripp” Grant
“I think coming out of a four-year downcycle and moving into a stronger freight cycle, the types of opportunities that we have in front of us today are plentiful and also complex to execute. The team is entirely focused on executing on those opportunities and have done a great job. And a lot of those opportunities are in the truckload space, which ironically went backwards from a margin perspective sequentially in the quarter,” Grant said on an Oct. 30 earnings call.
“But regardless, I think what we're doing there is, I said it before, it's transformational and a lot of organic and in-house opportunities to execute on. And when the time is right or if the right acquisition or the right company comes our way, we have the flexibility to do it and the track record to acquire a company and do it well. But there's a lot of focus internally on the execution that is going to take and on the opportunities that we have in front of us over the next 12 to 18 months, however long this cycle lasts.”
Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings CEO Adam Miller
“We're encouraged about where this business is headed,” Miller said when asked on an Oct. 21 earnings call regarding LTL and Northeast expansion plans.
“I think 2027 is set up to where we'll probably start to organically grow into the Northeast. We've got several locations already picked out that I think would work from a location standpoint. And if the volume continues to hold in and we continue to make progress on managing the cost of that business, we'll start expanding to the Northeast. And we'll be very deliberate.”
PAMT CEO and President Lance Stewart
“We remain optimistic that rates will continue to improve as the market adjusts to ongoing cost pressures and reduced industry capacity,” Stewart said in a Nov. 2 earnings release.
TFI International CEO and President Alain Bédard
“I think that on the Truckload side, the market is still soft,” Bédard said on an Oct. 30 earnings call when asked about the mode in particular. “I mean the demand is not there. It's not really wow. But it's the supply” of trucking businesses that’s constrained, helping remaining players due to federal U.S. policies on English language proficiency and compliance issues such as CDL schools affecting eligibility, he added.
“But going into '27, I think that this is some kind of a permanent change,” he said, noting the potential upside with housing demand and related building materials such as steel and aluminum. “So we feel very good about '27 because at one point, the demand will start. The supply will stay constrained.”
Werner Enterprises CEO and President Derek Leathers
“We believe we are still in the early innings of a multiyear upcycle,” he said on an Oct. 27 earnings call. “Structural supply contractions continue across the industry. Customer demand remains stable, and our pricing discipline remains firm with rates continuing to move upward toward more sustainable reinvestable levels.”
XPO CEO Mario Harik
“We do expect another strong year both for OR improvement and for earnings growth,” Harik said on an Oct. 29 earnings call.
“At a high level, if you look at where we're ending the year here, one, we continue to see continued industry volume improvement. And as we have shown this year, we expect to outperform that, and that's driven by profitable share gains through the course of the year, and we expect that to continue in 2027.
“We also expect another strong year of pricing performance. You'll see the trend as we exit the year is looking solid, and we expect that to continue through 2027 and beyond. Then the last component on cost efficiency and our AI initiatives, all of these are in the early innings of delivering value for us in terms of efficiency, and we're going to capitalize on those further in 2027.”
