YRC Worldwide updating fleet and searching for drivers

After years of deferring major truck purchases, YRC Worldwide is preparing to shed some old equipment and replace it with new tractor-trailers. The $5.1 billion less-than-truckload operator is trading up both trucks and technology, CEO James Welch said at the Truckload & Logistics Council’s 41st annual conference here Monday.

“We’re going to onboard a lot of new equipment,” Welch told the more than 200 shippers, brokers and truckers at the event. “We’re going to spend as much money as we can generate on buying new equipment over the next several years.” YRC Worldwide is leasing equipment, rather than buying it outright, a strategy it has pursued over the past couple of years as the company battles to narrow its losses. With the U.S. economy growing more steadily, and its bottom and top lines improving, YRC Worldwide is reinvesting in its assets.

In its fourth-quarter earnings conference call, CFO Jamie Pierson said YRC Worldwide plans to bring 600 new Class 8 tractors onboard in the first half of 2015, and noted the LTL operator was trading in the power units that had racked up the most mileage. That addressed concerns raised by analysts about the advanced age of some YRC Worldwide trucks.

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