CSX Corporation (CSX) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2022

July 20, 2022 4:30 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Brent and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q2 2022 CSX Corporation Earnings 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.

Thank you. It is now my pleasure to turn today's call over to Mr. Matthew Korn, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Matthew Korn - Head, IR

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter call. Joining me on today's call are Jim Foote, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Kevin Boone, our Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing; Jamie Boychuk, Executive Vice President of Operations; and Sean Pelkey, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

In our presentation, you will find our forward-looking disclosure on slide two, followed by our non-GAAP disclosures. And with that, it will be my pleasure to introduce our President and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Foote.

Jim Foote - President & CEO

Thank you, Matthew and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'll start by expressing my thanks to all CSX's employees for their hard work during another quarter of tough operating conditions. And I am very pleased to welcome everyone from Pan Am who joined the CSX team in June. We look forward to working together to build new single-line service across our combined network.

Our second quarter results were solid as we continue to benefit from strong customer demand and firm pricing. But our ability to hire and retain new workers, which is vital to improving our service and growing the business, remains challenged. We are not alone in facing this problem. The labor market is tight, prospective recruits have many job options and the pandemic has had a profound effect on employees' work and lifestyle preferences.

Our truck hiring process has been steady, but slow. We will not let up in our efforts to grow our engineer and conductor headcount and improve network fluidity to pre-pandemic levels.

Since the time of our last earnings call, our uncertainty and volatility have clearly increased in the financial markets and in parts of the economy. Inflationary pressures have moved higher and interest rates have risen. We're staying diligent by keeping in close touch with our customers, monitoring our order rates, and constantly updating our forecasts.