Just Dispatched
Elder Logistics has closed and parked its fleet after a prolonged downturn. The LTL carrier’s final operating day was October 17, 2025, and the company confirmed the shutdown the following week. Elder expanded from 2 trucks in 2010 to a peak of 145 during the boom, but had downsized to 52 trucks at the time of closure. In a message to staff, President & CEO Scott Elder called the past 3.5 years “simply unprecedented,” adding that the team cut back, adjusted, and pivoted but “the lift was five pounds more than we could handle.”
The Unfavorable Market
The closure lands squarely in a cycle that has refused to turn fast enough for small and mid-size fleets. CCJ’s coverage from ATA’s 2025 MCE this week describes a market where recovery is expected to come more from capacity exiting than from a near-term demand surge. ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello labeled the conditions “unsustainable” for many carriers, with tariffs, inflation, and weak freight demand suppressing volumes and pricing power. Contract truckload revenue per mile ticked up slightly in Q3, but that improvement follows several years in which operating costs rose far faster than revenue, widening a structural profitability gap. Since late 2022, the number of authorized interstate property carriers has fallen 10.6% (more than 39,000 exits), as lenders and operators finally pull equipment and capital out of the for-hire market.
Elder’s trajectory mirrors that squeeze. When rates cooled and rebids reset contract pricing lower, the revenue base shrank while fixed obligations stayed constant. Elder’s CEO acknowledges that multiple pivots couldn’t overcome the depth and duration of the slump.
What's Working Now
For fleets watching this unfold, the lesson is less about a single balance sheet and more about cycle math. Even as some indicators stabilize, Costello stressed that the recovery path runs through additional supply correction. He pointed to depressed freight demand in construction, manufacturing, and retail, and highlighted that operational costs excluding fuel rose 9.7% in both 2021 and 2022, 6.6% in 2023, and 3.6% in 2024, leaving a 26% gap versus revenue per mile. In that context, a mid-sized carrier that grew during the boom and then trimmed back, still carried fixed overhead and financing costs and was vulnerable if pricing power didn’t return by peak season.