Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. Class A Common Stock 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Thank you, Jillian. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our third quarter 2026 earnings call. Today, we plan to discuss topics related to the results of the quarter, current market conditions, and our earnings guidance. We have slides to accompany this call, which are posted on our investor website. The call is scheduled to last one hour. Following our commentary, we will answer questions related to these topics. In order to get to as many participants as possible, we limit the questions to one per participant. If you have a second question, please feel free to get back in the queue. We will answer as many questions as time allows. If we are not able to get to your question due to time restrictions, you may call 602-606-6349. To begin, I will first refer you to the disclosures on slide 2 of the presentation and note the following.

This conference call and presentation may contain forward-looking statements made by the company that involve risks, assumptions, and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Investors are directed to the information contained in Item 1A, Risk Factors, or Part One of the company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the U.S. SEC for a discussion of the risks that may affect the company's future operating results. Actual results may differ. Now I'll hand the call over to Adam for some opening remarks.

Thanks, Brad, and good afternoon, everyone. Just want to let you know I'm getting over a cold here, so I might have some lingering coughs that come through. If you hear any noise in the background, that would be me. I apologize for that, but wanted to make sure I was available for the call here. First I'd like to start by recognizing our team and the progress we have made in each of our distinct brands. We continue to build out our diversified service model and saw solid performance across each of our segments this quarter. In addition, I was very encouraged to see the improvement in our core Truckload margins that are finally approaching recognizable territory after such a long and difficult down cycle.

We are so grateful for the focus, teamwork, and commitment of our professional drivers and driver support personnel who brought us through the past cycle and whose creativity and collaboration will help us navigate the new one. There is much work yet to be done to return to normal operating levels, but the good news is we see many opportunities for improvement to get us there and to help our organization chart new heights moving forward. We truly have an amazing team, and I look forward to navigating this next cycle together. Yes, we believe the new cycle still has plenty of gas left in the tank. The Truckload freight market continues to remain tight, and while broad measures of industry demand have been largely stable, demand for our capacity has been strong.

We have more peak season project arrangements in place than at any time since the pandemic, and freight tenders have already started under several of these projects. We believe we are well-positioned to generate distinctive results for two main reasons: the differentiation in our service mix and in our business model. Regarding service mix, our single largest service is the one-way Truckload market, a space experiencing a supply-driven tightening after 3-plus years where artificially low pricing drove unusually weak industry margins. During the downturn, many carriers either went out of business, partially liquidated fleet assets, or shifted one-way capacity into dedicated services where there was less competition from non-compliant operators.

Because we have remained committed to one-way Truckload service and operate the largest one-way fleet in the industry, we are now seeing consistent opportunities to deliver valuable capacity solutions to our customers in the space experiencing the most supply contraction. We believe this is contributing to our spot rates and low tender rejection rates trending stronger than broad market indicators on these metrics. Also, because one-way service is the most flexible, our industry-leading one-way scale and history of responsive problem-solving means we are often the first call large shippers make when they have an acute need for transportation service. The one-way market also has an active spot market where rates that are highly responsive to the supply contraction not only accelerate our rate recovery but also have helped provide insightful observations on price discovery, particularly as our spot rates are often much stronger than public spot rate data.

Regarding our differentiated business model, there are a few things I would highlight that are already serving us well and which will be the key to delivering industry-leading margins. First would be our market management practices and unique purview on the freight market. We are continually refining our playbook for how we read and respond to signals in the market and how to manage the deployment of capacity in support of service and yield. We couple this with distinctive competitive intelligence provided by our industry-leading scale and combination of multiple Truckload brands in the marketplace, which further enhances our ability to read market signals and respond with agility. Related to this area is our intentional practice of engaging in spot-rated transactions and modulating our spot exposure based on the phase of the cycle. This enhances our signal detection and allows for faster price recovery in up cycles.

Next would be our large academy network and driver training program, through which we source and develop a significant portion of our professional driver base. This is helping to somewhat blunt the negative impacts of the tight driver market on our business and will be key to helping us seat more trucks and increase utilization to capture more opportunities. Next would be our large terminal network and decentralized operating model. This has allowed us to construct a dense freight network that is primarily built on regional freight, which allows us to minimize empty miles and maximize revenue per truck relative to cost. Such a network also supports driver recruiting, retention, and development as well as internalizing maintenance as advantageous costs. Finally, I would call out our intense culture focus on cost and execution, which allows us to convert opportunities into earnings.

Of note lately, our disciplines around fuel procurement, efficiency, and recovery are helping us mitigate the negative impacts of record high diesel as best we can. To be clear, we are not immune from cost pressures, but we are focused on doing everything we can to mitigate cost impacts and recover inflation through pricing. We remain encouraged by momentum in the market and strong early progress in our core Truckload business. We are pleased with the significant progress the team at U.S. Xpress has made in improving costs, service, safety, business mix, and pricing, and we look forward to making further progress. We have also significantly reduced our floating interest rate exposure through our 1% convertible bond offering in the spring and are making meaningful progress reducing our acquisition-related leverage.

As free cash flow continues to improve, we anticipate being back to our target leverage range not before long and will again have maximum flexibility as we consider opportunities for organic growth, M&A, and share buybacks. With that, I will turn the call over to Andrew and Brad to review the results and our guidance.

Thanks, Adam. The charts on slide 3 compare our consolidated third-quarter revenue and earning results on a year-over-year basis. Consolidated revenue increased 14.2%, and consolidated revenue excluding Truckload and LTL fuel surcharge increased 7.7% year over year. Operating income grew $128 million, or 255.1% year over year. Adjusted operating income grew $93 million, or 87.4% year over year. The improvement in earnings was primarily driven by pricing and network efficiency gains across our asset-based businesses, in addition to gross margin recovery in our Logistics business. GAAP earnings per diluted share for the third quarter of 2026 were $0.72 compared to $0.05 in the third quarter of 2025. Adjusted EPS was $0.83 for the third quarter of 2026 versus $0.32 last year. Our consolidated adjusted operating ratio was 89.3%, a 450-basis point improvement year over year.

Slide 4 illustrates the revenue and adjusted operating income from each of our segments for the quarter. Overall, the relative share of our various service offerings remained largely consistent. Intermodal, again, gaining slightly over the previous quarter as it grew revenue 8.4% sequentially. Now we will discuss each of our segments, starting with our Truckload segment on Slide 5. Our Truckload segment is making meaningful progress restoring margin through disciplined yield management and cost control. After being driven by spot rates in the second quarter, realized revenue per mile accelerated in the third quarter, driven by contract rate changes, primarily within our one-way division. This quarter marks the first one in a few years that operating margins for our one-way service exceeded those of our dedicated division.

We continue to see opportunities through mini bids, turn back bids, while peak season projects have started to move even while conversations on late developing needs continue to surface. We are leveraging collaboration to support our various brands and service lines while providing greater capacity solutions to our customers. There are many reasons to be encouraged and plenty of levers to drive further improvement. One of the biggest priorities across our operation is seating more trucks and increasing utilization. This will allow us to retain more opportunities and grow revenue at compelling incremental margins. We are leveraging our academy and training network to navigate driver sourcing challenges and to manage cost. We have 12 CDL academies across the U.S., with plans to open a few more in the coming months, plus partner schools operating on-site at seven additional terminals.