Currently at our hub the supes are training UPSF new hires to pull triples and doubles. They are supposedly hiring 18 triples and 20 doubles drivers. I was talking with 1 of the supes doing the training and he told me freight's volume was up significantly in our area. He also said that UPSF authorized the hiring of 100 new drivers east of the Mississippi River. Sounds like they are banking on the misfortune of YRC?
Sure does. Even in a reduced economy, the loss of hauler the size of YRCW to the market has to make a difference. And, granted, while the demise of YRCW may by no means be a "sure thing", I've heard a lot of comments recently about shippers withdrawing their business from YRCW in anticipation of such an event. In somewhat the same fashion, UPS and FDX gathered-in some low-hanging fruit when DHL first announced a possible agreement with UPS regarding carriage of it's domestic air shipments; even though DHL did not announce that it was going out of business, its customers saw it as the first hint at such an announcement, and began to divert their shipments accordingly...to the point that, in the end, there wasn't enough left to make any carriage agreement with UPS meaningful.
Not wishing for the downfall of YRCW to fall on anybody's heads, especially that of it's predominately Teamster employees. But if it happens, I hope UPSF is there to pick up its share of the debris.