Winter Business Update
Contributed by: Dan Vander Pol, Co-President
2025 is here and we have a lot to be thankful for at Oak Harbor Freight Lines.
We just finished another successful year in business, and we ended up at a 95.16% OR for 2024. We did move the wrong direction on our profitability as we operated at a 93.74% last year, but it was still a pretty good year overall.
| . | . | . | . | . | . |
| Service Improvement | |||||
| 95.16% | |||||
| 1.5% | 93.74% | ||||
| change | last year | ||||
| . | . | . | . | . | . |
2024 - What Hurt our OR?
Healthcare
Number one on that list is healthcare costs as we were up 28% on our healthcare costs in 2024 from 2023. While some of that can be attributed to having a few more people working for us, the main driver of the rise was claims. In 2024, we not only had more healthcare claims but the ones we had were much larger than years past.
Inflation also hit healthcare costs as the price of drugs and treatment have gone up substantially. We offer a very good healthcare plan and made no changes to the plan despite the increased costs.
Lease & Workers Comp
The next two big items that increased in 2024 are Equipment Lease Expense and Workers Comp. They were up 28% and 29%, respectively.
The cost of equipment shot up over the last couple years and we are seeing that reflecting in our costs. We also had some costly injuries that affected our Workers Comp. We believe these will stabilize in 2025 and are hopeful that a larger portion of our price increases will make it to the bottom line this year.
Now lets talk about some of the good things in 2024.
| . | . | . | . | . | . |
| Service Improvement | |||||
| 95.58% | |||||
| 2.37% | 93.31% | ||||
| change | last year | ||||
| . | . | . | . | . | . |
2024 - What Helped our OR?
On-Time Service
We are also taking great care of our customers with an on-time percentage of 95.58% compared to 93.31% last year. We are thankful for the hard work all of our employees put in everyday, we have an amazing group of people.
Revenue
Our revenue was up 9.5%, despite a fairly tough economy where many carriers were flat or even down in revenue. Our services continue to be very much in demand as the only super regional West Coast carrier.
Looking Forward to 2025
New Terminal
We are excited to finally open our Patterson terminal on March 10th.
This will allow us better access to the customers in that area along with providing room to grow. It is a 54-door facility on 10 acres in an area that continues to add warehouses and shipping opportunities. Our terminal is located nicely between many of our California terminals which will aide our density in this area. We look forward to the grand opening!
2025 Goals
We believe 2025 will be another great year at Oak Harbor.
1. 5% Bill Count Growth.
2. Improving our OR by one percentage point.
3. Improve our labor as % of revenue by ½ a point.
Working as a united team will make these goals happen. Thanks again for what you do and cheers to a great year.