Covenant Logistics Group co-founder and CEO David Parker predicts the trucking industry’s peak season will see positive growth this holiday season.
“Last week started the first week of peak that will go until about Christmas, and peak, it shot up about 105% last week, and this week peak is growing even more,” Parker said. “I think that peak is going to be a good peak, I think for the first time in about three or four years. I think after that, we will go into January and February, and the weather will slow it down. I think that March will start seeing a nice turn in freight.”
Parker was the keynote speaker on Day 2 of FreightWaves’ F3: Future of Freight Festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was joined on stage Wednesday by FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller in a discussion that dived into leadership and innovation in logistics.
Chattanooga-based Covenant Logistics Group (NYSE: CVLG) was founded in 1986 by David and Jacqueline Parker. The company started as Covenant Transport with 25 trucks and 50 trailers.
Today, Covenant Logistics owns a fleet of over 2,500 trucks and offers a portfolio of transportation and logistics services throughout the country, including asset-based expedited and dedicated truckload capacity, as well as asset-light warehousing, transportation management and freight brokerage services.
Parker said listening to customers is a big part of Covenant Logistics’ success over the years.
“At the end of the day, freight is going to go the way freight has got to go,” Brown said. “It’s going to find its home. We’ve always got to be open. Our eyes have to be open. Our ears are going to be open. We’ve got to be listening to our customers that are telling us where freight is going.”
With the presidential election over, Parker said he feels the mood in the transportation industry and Wall Street has been more optimistic.
Parker has recently been in New York to attend an industry conference, as well as to celebrate the company’s transfer of its stock listing to the New York Stock Exchange from the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
“No. 1, the flavor yesterday at Wall Street, shareholders and the carriers that were there … they are thrilled with the election, because I think besides putting away doubt, they do see the policies. This administration’s trucking policies are a lot better than the Biden administration. I know that the trucking industry is going to be in much better shape from regulations.”
Parker said the Trump administration could likely peel back Environmental Protection Agency regulations on emissions, as well as ease up on policies pushing for electrification in the transportation industry.
“Let’s get clean air: I believe in all that stuff but also believe that it needs to be realistic, and that is, we’re not going to be there in 2030,” Parker said. “[The Biden administration] came out with saying we’re going to have to have all electric engines in 2030. No, you’re not. Quit playing the game, because it ain’t going to happen. That can happen in 2040 maybe, but it’s not happening in 2030.”
While Trump’s proposed tariffs could slow freight movement, the Trump administration’s focus on domestic oil production could be a boost for the trucking industry, according to Parker.
“The thing that I’m wondering is that if the tariffs happen, or how much the tariffs are, no nation in the world is going to give up on America,” he said. “We have 340 million people that buy stuff, more than anywhere in the world. They buy stuff. They’re not going to give up if [Trump] puts X amount percent of tariffs; they’re going to figure a way to continue to send it over to America. It was evident by the last four years that Trump had in office, when he put tariffs in. Inflation was nothing. The tariffs are not going to blow up inflation, because the other side of the tariffs is his quote, ‘Drill, baby drill.’ That is going to be advantageous for reduction in pricing.”