Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Delco's Pilot Freight out-grows UPS, FedEx

"We develop customers well" over time, says Pilot boss Richard Phillips Jr.

Pilot Freight Services, Lima, plans to expand its new Mexico City facility and adding new ones in Toronto and Amsterdam as it follows customers overseas, chief executive Richard G. Phillips Jr. told me.

Pilot says it shipped $424 million in packages for General Electric Corp., Dell Computer, Best Buys and hundreds more clients last year, up 31% from 2009. Shipments topped 583 million pounds, up 29%.

That's compared to a 9% sales increase at UPS and a 12% increase at FedEx, according to their most recent numbers, reported last fall.

"What absolutely exploded was home delivery," including online retailing and electronics shipments, Phillips told me. Industrial shipments were also up from the year before.

How can Pilot, which contracts with fliers, grow faster than UPS and FedEx, which own their own jet fleets? "We don't compete for the most price-sensitive business; we're not the low-cost provider," Phillips told me. "We solve problems. We figure things out. We find ways to improve (customers') supply chain - 'keep a little inventory on our dock'... We develop customers well."

Will global expansion require new investors? "I get calls every day. But the family's happy" owning and running Pilot, he said. "We have a nice relationship with our lender" at Citizens Bank. "There will be some capita linvolved. But so far, we've been able to grow within our means. If we can't do something well, we won't do it. We turn down a lot of business."