When Yellow Corp filed for bankruptcy in August 2023, the LTL industry lost a carrier that — at peak — moved more than 50,000 shipments a day across roughly 12,000 doors. The conventional read at the time was that a handful of national carriers (Estes, Saia, XPO, Old Dominion, FedEx Freight) would split the freight roughly proportionally to their pre-Yellow market share.

That's not what happened.

Off Ramp's audit of NMFC tonnage reroute data — pulled across a representative sample of 4,200 shippers — finds three distinct stories.

1. The big three did absorb most of it.

Estes, Saia and XPO collectively picked up 71% of the displaced freight by tonnage. Estes got the lion's share of the East Coast lanes. Saia ran the table on the Southeast. XPO won the long-haul.

2. Old Dominion barely moved.

Despite being the most operationally consistent national LTL in the country, Old Dominion's tonnage growth post-Yellow has tracked the underlying market — not the displacement. Multiple shippers we interviewed said the same thing: ODFL's pricing discipline made them an attractive contract partner in good times, but they wouldn't price the Yellow displacement aggressively. They left the share gain on the table on purpose.

3. The regional carriers that grew the most aren't household names.

The real winner of the Yellow vacuum is a regional cohort that includes Dayton Freight, Pitt Ohio, A. Duie Pyle and Ward Trucking. Together they absorbed 14% of the displaced freight — disproportionate to their pre-2023 footprint. Their winning move was simple: faster bid response, white-glove account management, and a willingness to over-invest in dock labor while the Big Three were running their network consolidation playbooks.

If you're a shipper, this is the cohort to call when you re-bid. If you're an analyst, this is the cohort to watch.

Premium subscribers can download the full carrier-by-carrier reroute matrix from the Data Room.