Source: Elizabeth Baatz, Thinking Cap Solutions. E-mail: ebaatz@alertdata.com

Truckers pushed through some fairly large price hikes in March 2008 as cost pressures continue to accelerate. Overall, the industry lifted average transaction prices 0.8% from a month ago. Prices were also up 5.1% from the same month a year ago, which was the largest inflation jump since December 2005. Long-distance LTL carriers drove the hardest bargain with a 9.2% price hike from March 2007 to March 2008. At the same time, TL companies pushed their average prices up 3.7%. Shippers who paid truckers for ancillary services like packing and storage felt inflation’s sting even more sharply: LTL and TL company fees for non-trucking services increased from a year ago by 15.8% and 11.4%, respectively.

U.S. airlines increased their average prices for flying passengers and cargo by 2.5% from a month ago and 8.7% from the same month a year earlier. Shipping cargo on scheduled flights, meanwhile, actually fell 0.1% from a month ago, but thanks to February’s large 4.1% price hike, air freight prices ended up 11.2% above March 2007 levels. Even worse, companies that provide international expedited courier services increased their average transaction prices 5.1% from a month ago and 13.2% from the same month a year earlier. These data include fuel surcharges. With refinery prices for jet fuel up 50% from a year ago, it’s surprising that air transport prices didn’t increase even faster.

Surveys of U.S.-owned carriers show that shipping freight over water became more expensive again in March 2008, though the rate of inflation is slowing. Overall water transport prices grew only 0.2% in March after jumping 3.3% in January and 1.9% in February. Coastal and intercoastal towing services, however, bucked the trend with a 4.2% price hike from February to March 2008. Compared to a year ago, these prices were up a budget-busting 29.6%. Likewise, prices for coastal and intercoastal freight transportation (excluding towing) were up 6.7% from a year ago as tags for moving freight on the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway and on inland waterways increased respectively by 17.5% and 18.3%.

A shortage of trailers may be throwing shippers for a loop these days, but rail companies aren’t letting those circumstances crimp their price hikes. In March 2008, average transaction prices for intermodal rail service jumped 3.1% from a month ago and 14.9% from the same month a year earlier. Prices for carload service, meanwhile, increased a respective 0.1% and 13% over the same time periods. After the first quarter of 2008 had been tallied, rail industry prices were up 12.2% over the first quarter of 2007—that’s on par with the high-inflation rates that shippers faced back in 2005. Our forecast doesn’t show inflationary pressures lasting as long as back then, but upward revisions may be inevitable.