Nearly century-old trucking company shuts down

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Yellow, one of the oldest and biggest U.S. trucking businesses, shut down on Sunday.

The 99-year-old company has more than 12,000 trucks moving freight across the country.

Dealing with a long-term organization like Yellow, this will have micro and macro-economic impacts across the country.

“This is a big deal. We haven’t seen this since Celadon or Central Freight which went out of business. So, we’re looking at the impact. Most likely what will happen is they’re going to sell the equipment, sell the properties, and then some other carriers will buy up space if it fits,” FreightWaves’ Thomas Wasson said.

Brands such as Walmart and Home Depot are just some of the corporations using their services.

The Nashville company sent out notices to customers and employees saying that operations would be stopped midday on Sunday.

“To summarize their entire 15-year saga of trying to not go bankrupt, and nearly going bankrupt, as I’m going to buy these things, I’m going to try to make them work together, but I have unionized labor and the unionized labor said, ‘Hey wait a minute. You’re going to make some of us redundant, I don’t like this. And it reached a point where the second takeaway is that 22,000 teamsters have lost their jobs,” Wasson said.

This will cost nearly 30,000 jobs and affect many national industries. Among regional locations, there was also a Ringgold location that will be leaving employees out of work.

“… it all impacts our economy. Everything moves by truck or a form of truck,” Wasson said.

Locally, this affects consumers and businesses in terms of how long shipments will take to deliver. 

FreightWaves wants to bring awareness to consumers about how this will affect their shipments as well as jobs across the country.

“Now, what you want to watch out for is Christmas. So right now, customers who were used to paying Yellow prices, which was cheap, they’re going to have to pay up. So, parcels will get more expensive, LTL will get more expensive because the other provider is priced better,” Wasson said.

Companies like Amazon are even having to find new shipping methods.

Keep in mind that some shipments will take longer and plan accordingly.