Looking back at 2015

2015 was a great year at Pilot. It brought us our best-ever performance, with record revenue of $556.3 million and 1.4 million shipments in total.

Throughout the year, we worked to continue our efforts expanding Pilot’s international and domestic reach, delivering our trademark personalized service, and adjusting the customized shipping solutions we offer customers worldwide.

Looking ahead, we are excited to keep the momentum as we bring our people, technology, and understanding of ground, ocean, and air capacity to new stations in Vancouver and Mexico City. In 2015, we debuted a new retail services division, and we look forward to it progressing in the coming year, allowing us to expand our work with brick-and-mortar retailers.

Keep your eyes here for updates, and from all of us at Pilot, we wish you a happy and prosperous 2016.

Raleigh rings in the New Year at bigger and better location

Here at Pilot we are continuing to grow and expand as a company, and our Raleigh station is no exception. The station is ringing in the New Year in a brand new updated location. The new space is located adjacent to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport, in the heart of the Triangle region. Our Raleigh team will now have roughly 25,000 square feet of office and warehouse space, nearly doubling the size of the previous station.

This expansion allows the Raleigh team to continue providing excellent service to its customers, as well as add to their arsenal of services. Raleigh will now be able to offer inventory management to its customer base, which includes technology, furniture, medical, electronics, and manufacturing companies, and we couldn’t be happier. We are very excited to see what new opportunities the station’s new and improved space will bring in the New Year!

Congratulations to the team in Raleigh on the big move and continued growth!

Pilot hits $500 million revenue milestone

At our National Meeting in Philadelphia two years ago, I stood up in front of 300 Pilot employees and announced my goal to reach $500 million in revenue in 2012. I could not be more proud to say that we have reached that goal.

This is an incredible accomplishment, one that truly shows the strength and determination of all Pilot employees. It’s impossible to give this credit to any one person or group of people, because our growth has been across the board. From special services to home delivery to government services, our team continues to exceed customer expectations and drive success.

I've said this before, and I’ll say it again – my excitement over this achievement isn't just because we hit a big number. It’s because we hit a big number by staying true to our core strengths, which lie in heavy-weight expedited freight. We don’t take every piece of business that comes our way. And in fact, in the past year we've chosen to walk away from some very attractive, big revenue accounts in order to go after the business that positions Pilot for long-term, sustainable growth. As a result of this strategy, I am confident that Pilot will continue to hit huge milestones in the years to come.

This will be another exciting year for us, as we continue to expand our footprint with new locations internationally, and many of our domestic stations moving to larger facilities to accommodate their rapid growth. Along with this expansion comes great opportunity for the Pilot community, and we are excited to see where 2013 will take us.

A big thanks and congratulations go out to all members of the Pilot family!

Strong first half of 2012 shows continued momentum for Pilot

It’s been an exciting first half of the year for everyone at Pilot. Our first quarter marked nine quarters of steady revenue growth and we are happy to say that the second quarter of 2012 has been no different. As a company, we have seen significant and continued growth, increasing our revenue by 12.5 percent from the second quarter of 2011.

The fantastic team at Pilot deserves much of the credit; especially those that helped our special services business grow this quarter—now up 65.5 percent year-over-year, along with our home delivery segment, which is up 37.2 percent over last year. Take a peek below for more about our solid second quarter. In addition, we congratulate Miami and Laredo on breaking the $1 million mark in monthly revenues, and recognize Pilot Seattle for their tremendous growth.

I have every confidence in the world that Pilot will continue to make huge strides and finish out the second half of the year with long-term revenue growth. We are excited about our employees’ hard work and Pilot’s ongoing commitment to exceeding customer expectations.

Nine quarters of growth and counting

Over the past several years, we've seen more and more of our competitors scale back their operations, lay off employees, and in some cases, close their doors entirely. But for the ninth consecutive quarter, Pilot has seen year-over-year revenue growth -- not a small feat when the economy is still struggling to rebound.

Today, we announced our numbers for the first quarter, which reflected growth across the company, thanks to another three months of amazing work from the entire Pilot team. A couple of highlights include 71 percent year-over-year growth for our special services business, and an almost 20 percent increase for our government business. 

With numbers like these, broad-based growth across the company as a whole, and the U.S. economy showing more signs of improvement, I can tell you that it's going to be another great year for Pilot.

Pilot's momentum continues into 2012

A year ago, I announced that 2010 was the year that Pilot broke all of its personal revenue and volume records. After a year like that, most companies would expect -- and be content -- to level off. Not Pilot. The numbers are in, and we have once again blown away our old records with $491 million in revenue for the year, up 16 percent from 2010. 

That number would have been impossible without every single one of our business segments marking significant gains for the year. Congratulations are in order for everyone for making this growth possible, and a special recognition goes to Larry Wenrich and the government group, which grew its revenue by an unbelievable 65 percent over the previous year. The work that they've done with both existing and new customers to serve U.S. interests at home and abroad clearly has not gone unnoticed.

As if these numbers weren't exciting enough on their own, I'm even more impressed by the fact that while we handled more volume in 2011 than ever before, we did so while achieving our best ever performance numbers. So not only did Pilot continue to grow, we also continued to deliver the excellent service our customers have come to expect. And that deserves a big round of applause all around.

After a year like that, where do we go from here? Nowhere but up.

Closing out Q3 and looking ahead to the holidays

As the holidays approach and we prepare for our busiest time of the year -- thanks to the huge growth of our home delivery business over the past few years -- I'm excited to close out yet another strong quarter at Pilot. As we announced today (check out the press release below), Q3 was the seventh consecutive quarter in which our revenue grew, keeping us on pace to have our biggest year ever.

Special congratulations goes to two groups: government services, which was up a whopping 46 percent over Q3 of 2010, and special services, who almost matched that number, with 44 percent year-over-year growth. Both teams have had great success in landing new accounts, as well as getting additional business from current customers. Great job to everyone involved!

Pilot Detroit doubles its footprint

Back in June I told you about the Pilot Houston station moving to a new space, and now the Detroit station has followed suit. As of a few weeks ago, all Pilot operations in Detroit are being housed at a new facility, more than double the size of their previous space. The move was necessitated by significant sustained growth across the station's domestic, international and home delivery business.

With this location change, the automotive group -- which was previously displaced due to a lack of room -- has moved back in with the rest of the Pilot group in Detroit.

I spoke with Zach Pollock, the station manager, who was very excited about the 12 dock doors in the new facility. The station recently launched a cartage trucking operation, which has been extremely successful thus far, but was limited by the old facility's limited number of docks. With this increased capacity, the team will be able to load and unload multiple trucks at once, increasing the flow of freight they can handle.

Congratulations to the team on the move!

Pilot Freight Services

11400 Metro Airport Center Dr., Suite 200

Romulus, MI 48174

Phone: 734-941-4090

FAX: 734-941-3677

Continue reading below for the press release we put out this morning on the news.

Pilot opens first European station

Back in January, I mentioned that there was big news coming for Pilot this year, including new locations both here in the states and abroad. After months of hard work by Gordon Branov, Gilles Auzanneau, Alexandra Ryan and many others, I am excited to announce that Pilot has opened its first European station, in Amsterdam.

Opening a full Pilot station in Amsterdam (AMS) will transform our company. Today, our customers' businesses often rely on international shipping or logistics. In order to offer the best possible customer service and transit times in Europe, as well as our sophisticated logistics solutions, we simply had to have our own people in place. And Amsterdam was the clear choice for where the first European station should go.

Amsterdam's Schipol airport and the Port of Rotterdam are two of the largest cargo portals in the world. Because of this, Amsterdam is home to enormous logistics programs, and is the perfect gateway to Western Europe. Its central location will allow us to offer overnight service to several major destinations, including France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland.

Additionally, AMS will give companies exporting freight from Europe easier access to our network in North America, Asia and many other countries around the world. While we expect much of the initial traffic through the Amsterdam station to be coming from the U.S. to European destinations, we anticipate that over time we'll see many more European companies taking advantage of our well-established domestic network.

The Amsterdam station will be managed by two Pilot veterans, Gilles Auzanneau and Alexandra Ryan. These long-time Pilot employees and international shipping experts are both previous winners of Pilot's Globetrotter award, and will bring the mix of operational and sales expertise that our customers expect from Pilot. The station will be overseen by our executive vice president of business development, Gordon Branov.

This is an important shift for Pilot. It marks our commitment to our international product, and stakes our claim as a global force in transportation and logistics. We expect AMS to lead to additional stations in other international locations. Stay tuned for more announcements later this year!

Pilot Houston moves up in the world

As Pilot has grown and expanded as a company, stations across the country have found it necessary to move to larger facilities to keep up with that growth. The latest station to make their move is Houston, which has moved into a new location, adjacent to the Houston Intercontinental Airport. The new facility features over 18,500 square feet of warehouse space (compared to 9,950 sq. ft. at the old location) and more than 3,000 sq. ft. of office space (up from 1,750).

I spoke with Brian Nelson, District Manager for the Houston station, who explained that recent growth—in terms of both business and personnel—precipitated this move. Over the past 12 to 15 months, the station has taken on at least five new warehousing customers, whose freight is shipped to the warehouse, where it is inventoried and stored, and eventually shipped out domestically.

In addition to obvious advantages of having more space to work with, Brian expressed to me that he is happy to be in a brand new space that is better equipped to host meetings with customers, and to showcase Pilot's offerings.

Congratulations to the team in Houston on the big move!

Pilot Freight Services

18951 Kenswick Drive, Suite 160

Humble, TX 77338

Phone: (281) 590-1197 

Fax: (281) 590-1582