Dive Brief:
- Saia’s operating ratio worsened to 91.9% in Q4 2025, according to earnings releases, a level even less desirable than what the carrier posted in Q1 when profitability is typically subdued.
- Excluding proceeds from a sale of a terminal for $16.4 million, its annual operating income was $337 million, which still represented a 30% decrease, the company said.
- The company nevertheless intends to grow its terminal network and hopes to reach 230 facilities and an overall operating ratio in the 70% range, CEO and President Fritz Holzgrefe said on an earnings call with investors on Tuesday.
Dive Insight:
Saia invested over $2 billion in the last three years to expand its network, and the carrier is still growing into its network, Holzgrefe said.
The result has been a nationwide network that’s been fully operating for one year, and parts of the network have ORs in the upper 70%, the CEO said.
“Results from our core business operations were in line with our expectations for the quarter,” Holzgrefe said in a statement, adding that accidents from prior years drove “approximately $4.7 million in elevated self-insurance related costs.”
Many of the new terminals the carrier opened, though, have operating ratios in the “mid to upper 90s,” CFO Matt Batteh told investors.
Other LTL carriers also invested in their networks during the COVID-19 pandemic, with expansions aided by the shuttering of Yellow Corp. Operating ratios have recently struggled for multiple companies, though. Year over year in Q4, the operating ratio for ArcBest’s asset-based segment rose from 92% to 96.2% while Old Dominion Freight Line’s increased from 75.9% to 76.7%.
That transition of capital investments is still unfolding for Saia.
“Parts of the network, even today, that have some level of maturity, we actually operate in the upper 70s now,” Holzgrefe said. “We use that as a guidepost.”
