FreightWaves Today | September 8

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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Craig (1:05)

Welcome to FreightWaves Today. It is Monday, Tuesday. Thank you, Julie, for reminding me. It is right after the Labor Day weekend. Long weekend. But really, I had the chance to nice and relax and chill and not do anything, which was amazing.

I labored for the last couple of months, so it was good to have a good break How about. you?

Julie (1:29)

We had a lot going on just with kids' soccer and an event in our neighborhood at the pool, which is really fun. So, I mean, it was still, we did a lot of fun stuff.

Craig (1:38)

College football is back. I mean, football in general, high school football is back.

College football is back. Some great weekends.

Julie (1:46)

What happened at the Baylor game? I saw some clip where the coaches were doing all this weird signaling.

Craig (1:50)

I don't know. I have no idea. You mean the Baylor school or Baylor University?

Julie (1:54)

University.

Craig (1:56)

I don't know. I didn't see any of the signaling. I watched the whole game, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Although, the coach went. Basically, they were down by one point. Coach went for two. They lost.

Auburn stopped. So a little disappointing for Baylor fans, but it was a great game and frankly, I came with low expectations. So the fact that we didn't get blown out by Auburn was a good thing. So we take our wins where we can get them. But back to it here in the freight market, this is really the start of the retail peak season. When things kick off of the West Coast, not a lot of movement in terms of the data.

Julie (2:38)

We did see, and we'll talk about a little in this in our update, we did see salaries rise last week heading into the holiday, and we did see rejections rise a bit and get above that 14 and a half.

Craig (2:47)

I wouldn't call it impressively there. I do have really a thought.

Julie (2:51)

That's in demand yet.

Craig (2:53)

The question is, and this is my theory, is that I think some of the consumer retail, CBG specifically, that's food imbeb, is doing worse than expected. I think some of the volume has been dropping off because food imbeb. Really, the question there, we've talked about it extensively, is it GOP1 that has to be a factor? But also, is the deportations, the immigration story where you start to change the population, they're not consuming as much, and then you also have SNAP benefits.

Some of this is inflation related. We've talked to folks that are in the beverage, particularly aluminum cans, soda, in beverage where aluminum prices due to tariffs have gone out through the roof, and therefore, there's less consumption has been inflation, price inflation related to food imbeb.

Julie (3:40)

Yeah, aluminum and steel both, right? I mean, significantly higher prices and I guess a shortage. I'm always scared to use that word. But short-term lack of available steel and aluminum.

Craig (3:52)

Yeah. I think the question also, and we're going to get into this with John Kingston, is how much is energy prices due to all of the geopolitical issues impacting consumer prices and then consumer inflation because that may be slowing down some consumption.

So, all of this is, we're going to get into this all today, but let's get into the headlines.

Julie (4:16)

Let's kick things off with a devastating cargo jet accident that has shut down half of Miami International Airport's operations. An Amazon Air cargo plane operated by North Carolina Base 21 Air overran a runway during landing Sunday afternoon, struck multiple vehicles on a nearby road and caught fire, leaving five people dead and five seriously injured. The Boeing 767-300 freighter was arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico when it left the runway traveling at 130 miles per hour.

Two of Miami's four runways remain closed Monday morning, causing flight operations to be impacted throughout the day. The National Transportation Safety Board has dispatched a team of experts to investigate the runway excursion while the cause remains under investigation. Over on the rails, more than 100 House Democrats are demanding that railroad workers come first in the proposed Union Pacific Norfolk Southern Mega Merger Review.