Higher diesel fuel prices raise truckers' costs to haul automobile parts, milk, furniture and other goods from one place to another. Trucking companies increasingly are passing those costs on to other companies.
Action Express Inc., a trucking company based in Milwaukee, is tacking a 7 percent surcharge onto its shipping bills, said Peter Gerasch, the firm's operations manager. On a typical haul between Milwaukee and Detroit to deliver auto parts, that means a surcharge of about $90 a load, he said.
Crude-oil traders work the floor of the Mercantile Exchange in New York yesterday.
(Michelle Axelrod -- New York Mercantile Exchange/AP)
|
|
"It makes it more expensive to run loads," Gerasch said. "Pretty much you pass it on, pass it on, pass it on."
Truckers have not been able to pass on all their higher costs, said Bob Costello, chief economist of the American Trucking Associations.
"It hurts," Costello said.
The money-losing airline industry is paying higher prices for jet fuels but is prevented by fierce competition from raising fares to compensate.
United Parcel Service Inc., the delivery company that operates a fleet of 88,000 vehicles and 270 aircraft, is paying more for both diesel and jet fuel.
The company adds a surcharge for express packages delivered by air, and it has been raising the surcharge steadily, said Susan Rosenberg, a company spokeswoman. It plans to lift it to 8.5 percent next month.
UPS has been working to hold down costs by buying fuel in bulk and dispatching its fleet more efficiently, she said.
Staff writer Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.
