Saia, Inc. (NASDAQ:SAIA) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 28, 2023 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Doug Col - EVP & CFO

Fritz Holzgrefe - President & CEO

Conference Call Participants

Jack Atkins - Stephens

Jason Seidl - TD Cowen

Jonathan Chappell - Evercore ISI

Amit Mehrotra - Deutsche Bank

Chris Wetherbee - Citigroup

Scott Group - Wolfe Research

Thomas Wadewitz - UBS

Allison Poliniak - Wells Fargo

Bascome Majors - Susquehanna.

Ken Hoexter - Bank of America

Ravi Shanker - Morgan Stanley

Christopher Kuhn - The Benchmark Company

Ariel Rosa - Credit Suisse

Operator

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Saia Inc.'s First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Doug Col, Saia's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Doug Col

Thanks, Regina. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the call. With me for today's call is Saia's President and Chief Executive Officer, Fritz Holzgrefe. Before we begin, you should know that during this call, we may make some forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These forward-looking statements and all other statements that might be made on this call that are not historical facts are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. We refer you to our press release and our SEC filings for more information on the exact risk factors that could cause actual results to differ.

I'll now turn the call over to Fritz for some opening comments.

Fritz Holzgrefe

Good morning, and thank you for joining us to discuss Saia's first quarter results. While it's always more exciting to discuss robust shipment trends and record margins. Today's call will be more about how our team managed through a challenging volume environment and provided -- produced, what I view as solid results in the first quarter of 2023.

In the quarter, we averaged approximately 28,500 shipments per day or about 7.1% fewer shipments per day than in the same quarter last year. We experienced an increase in the average weight per shipment as tonnage fell by only 5.5%. The mix shift to a heavier average weighted shipment, along with positive pricing drove a 6.3% increase in average revenue per shipment, excluding fuel surcharge and total first quarter revenue was $660 million, essentially flat with last year despite the falloff in volumes.