Ground Parcel Traffic Boom To Continue

With a strong spurt in the fourth quarter, 2005 finished with a total of 4.1 billion shipments with total tonnage of 42 billion pounds and overall revenues for the transportation sector of more than $26 billion, both overall records.

Looking at ground parcel results, Colography president, Ted Scherck, observes that, “last year continued the long, secular trend of gains in this sector. As we have said many times in the past, U.S. commerce has migrated to a short-haul, regional model where goods are delivered and distributed less than 600 miles via lower-cost surface transport. As we move well into 2006, we see nothing on the horizon to change this trend.”

At the same time, according to the report, domestic airfreight and less than truckload (LTL) traffic, while showing gains year over year, have not returned to their record levels set in 2000. According to the report:

• LTL shipments climbed to 131.1 million shipments, up from the previous year’s 128.3 million as tonnage grew to 139 billion pounds compared to 136.2 billion pounds in 2004.

• Domestic airfreight rose to 17.4 billion pounds from the year before’s 17.0 billion pounds, with 2.5 billion shipments, just above 2004’s total of 2.45 billion shipments. Revenues grew $1.6 billion over 2004 levels to $33.5 billion.

Scherck notes that, “Last year was a splendid one for U.S. air exports as vestiges of a weaker dollar combined with resilient end-markets across the globe created strong demand for the mode. Beyond the macro factors, however, the results demonstrate that airfreight is an increasingly vital force in enabling global trade and supporting world-class international inventory models.”