The trucking industry is eagerly anticipating a long-awaited rebound in freight rates this year as well as an easier regulatory environment following President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
But those are far from the only matters commanding carrier executives’ attention in 2025.
FedEx’s spinoff of its Freight division and a multibillion-dollar acquisition hinted by TFI International are expected to change the face of an industry still absorbing the shock of the largest bankruptcy in trucking history two years ago.
Based on Trucking Dive’s coverage of the industry and executives’ statements in interviews and earnings calls, here are five major storylines to monitor this year.
1. Who will run Trump’s FMCSA?
Industry advocates have voiced support for Trump’s nominee for transportation secretary, former U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy.
With Duffy’s confirmation process underway, eyes are turning to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, whose leader will have significant sway over trucking rules, including for speed limiters, broker transparency and autonomous trucking.
An autonomous trucking framework, for one, is “likely an issue that will be determined at the level of the President,” Jim Mullen, an acting FMCSA chief during Trump’s first term, wrote in a blog post last week.
2. Will a FedEx Freight spinoff happen this year?
The parcel giant’s spinoff of the country’s largest LTL carrier has major implications, not only for its employees and customers but its competitors and investors.
The planned move also raises plenty of questions for the company and the industry, including who will run the spun-off carrier following FedEx Freight President Lance Moll’s retirement this year and how the ripple effects of a spinoff will play out for the rest of the market.
Perhaps none looms larger than the timing. FedEx has said it anticipates to execute the spinoff within the next 18 months, which could mean it happens in 2025 or 2026.
Truckers, customers, investors and other stakeholders will be watching closely to see what it means for their fortunes — particularly if freight demand continues to lag like it has for the past two years.
3. What multibillion-dollar acquisition will TFI make?
Canada-based freight conglomerate TFI International followed its announced acquisition of Daseke by rolling out a plan last year to split its truckload and LTL holdings into separate companies.
But TFI Chairman, President and CEO Alain Bédard put the brakes on the spinoff in October, saying the company first needed to execute a $4 billion to $5 billion acquisition of a U.S. LTL carrier, likely sometime in 2025.
If TFI is still interested in a long-rumored acquisition of ArcBest, that path got easier last year. ArcBest lowered its threshold for shareholders to approve an M&A deal in March 2024 to align its governance structure with other S&P 500 companies.
With Yellow out of business, a potential TFI-ArcBest deal would further consolidate the LTL industry by merging the last two big, unionized LTL carriers, ArcBest’s ABF Freight and TFI’s TForce Freight.
But Teamsters negotiations delayed such a deal in 2023, and Yellow’s bankruptcy made clear how much of a challenge carriers can face in merging unionized fleets, even after they’re under the same corporate umbrella.
4. Will Knight-Swift achieve its nationwide LTL ambitions?
The largest U.S. truckload carrier entered the LTL market in 2021 with its $1.4 billion acquisition of AAA Cooper Transportation, adding subsequent purchases of Midwest Motor Express and Dependable Highway Express.
Knight-Swift has revealed ambitions to provide a national, in-house LTL network by 2026. Its progress this year will determine when it achieves those nationwide ambitions, which it is chasing alongside Saia.
Knight-Swift’s hustle to integrate California-based DHE into its operations weighed on its Q4 2024 earnings, but executives viewed its strategic importance and the benefits of avoiding volume and service disruption as worthwhile.
As with FedEx and TFI, Knight-Swift’s sheer scale makes it a trucking heavyweight that other carriers look to for signs about the broader freight market’s health and Wall Street’s appetite for M&A, among other indicators.
Knight-Swift expects its facility additions to slow in 2025, but it continues to examine “both organic and inorganic opportunities to geographically expand our footprint within the LTL market,” the carrier said last week.
5. How quickly can carriers add Yellow’s old terminals to their networks?
This summer will mark two years since Yellow went belly-up, laying off about 30,000 employees and selling off trucks and terminals to its former competitors to repay creditors.
XPO, Estes Express Lines, Saia, Knight-Swift, R+L Carriers, A. Duie Pyle and others spent a combined roughly $2 billion on terminal purchases and lease acquisitions to add Yellow’s former real estate to their networks.
During whatever is left of the freight recession, those carriers are hurrying to reopen shuttered terminals across the country so they can take full advantage of the additional capacity once demand rebounds.
Many former Yellow sites have already reopened, while others are slated to come online this year. The bidding is not over: Knight-Swift and A. Duie Pyle are among those interested in the final batch of more than 100 properties still up for auction.
A key question posed by this last storyline, especially as LTL pricing discipline shows signs of cracking: How much will carriers be willing to discount their rates and accessorials to fill their newly acquired terminals?
