Yellow Corp.'s pending bankruptcy is a move that has long seemed inevitable, one that shuts the doors on a company just short of its 100th anniversary and ends a tumultuous 15 years.
The No. 6 carrier on CCJ's Top 250 ranking of for-hire carriers, Yellow has been off and on the ropes financially since at least 2009, yet it had managed to narrowly avoid bankruptcy multiple times. It's pending closure, affecting nearly 30,000 employees, is among the largest in U.S. history with regard to headcount.
Yellow last week said it is looking to sell its third-party logistics business, Yellow Logistics, Inc., and is currently engaged in "active and ongoing" conversations with multiple suitors. The motor carrier is just three years removed from having received a $700 million lifeline from the Treasury Department as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act – a loan the government in June said the company – then YRC Worldwide – shouldn't have received.
Yellow managed to side-step a work stoppage July 24 that likely would have been its undoing, but in the end the threat of a strike proved to be enough. The possibility of stranded freight spurred a mass exodus of shipper customers into the arms of the company's competitors.
The Teamsters union, representing roughly 22,000 Yellow employees, said it was notified Sunday of Yellow's plans to cease operations and file bankruptcy.
Yellow in 2022 kicked off a makeover of its network. Dubbed One Yellow, the goal was for the company to emerge as a lean "super-regional carrier." Phase 1, integrating the linehaul networks of YRC Freight and Reddaway in the Western region to support both regional and long-haul services, was completed last year with approval from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). However, IBT threw up a roadblock over Phases 2 and 3, which included the alignment of operations in the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and Central regions set to take place this year.
Yellow has maintained the delay in rollout has cost the company in excess of $137 million since late last year. The carrier in June filed a lawsuit against IBT to recoup the damages, and last week said the union shouldered blame for Yellow's precarious financial state.
