The Iran conflict is delivering a gut punch to America's trucking industry, with diesel prices spiraling to levels that are rewriting the economics of moving goods across the country — and threatening to push an already-stressed carrier base toward the breaking point. Average on-highway diesel prices have surged past $5.40 per gallon nationally, with the situation in California dramatically worse. The Golden State's on-highway average hit $7.22 per gallon in late March, a 44.

On 26 March 2026, United Airlines and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) announced a tentative agreement covering approximately 30,000 cabin crew members. On paper, it is a landmark deal. The airline says it will make its flight attendants the best-paid in the American airline industry, with top hourly wages reaching $100 by the end of the contract's five-year term and immediate pay increases kicking in the moment ratification is confirmed. The total package is su

USTN sat down with Airlines for America (A4A) to get an industry-wide view on some of the most pressing economic issues facing the aviation industry. A4A is the trade association for the leading U.S. airlines, both passenger and cargo, with members including American Airlines, Delta, and United. This is the second iteration of USTN’s ‘Ask the Expert’ interview series, and we encourage our readers to submit any query they have regarding airline financials for our next resid

The US shipping regulator fired a warning shot at Beijing this week, putting the world's second-largest economy on notice that its campaign of maritime retaliation against Panama is now squarely in America's crosshairs. Federal Maritime Commission Chair Laura DiBella said the agency is "closely monitoring" a surge in Chinese detentions of Panama-flagged vessels and their effects on global shipping conditions. The statement, issued Thursday, marked Washington's most direct pub

Two Canadian pilots are dead and more than 40 people were hospitalised after an Air Canada Express regional jet collided with a Port Authority fire truck on a runway at LaGuardia Airport late Sunday night, in what is shaping up to be the most serious U.S. aviation incident in years. Air Canada Express Flight AC8646, a CRJ-900 operated by Jazz Aviation, was arriving from Montreal when it struck a Port Authority Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting vehicle on Runway 4 at approximat

It began with an audacious premise: that Abraham Lincoln's original vision for a coast-to-coast railroad, signed into law in 1862, had never truly been fulfilled. More than 160 years later, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are betting $85 billion that they can finish the job. The two companies submitted their merger application to the Surface Transportation Board in December, proposing to combine Union Pacific's vast western network with Norfolk Southern's eastern reach int

The testimony was damning in its simplicity. "Everything was a lie to get paid," said Damian Labeaud — a self-described "slammer" who spent years deliberately driving cars into eighteen-wheelers on New Orleans highways, on behalf of personal injury attorneys who would then sue the trucking companies for millions. Labeaud's words, delivered last week from the witness stand in federal court, cut to the heart of what prosecutors are calling one of the most audacious insurance fr

The framework for a safer American airspace exists on paper. The politics of building it remain, for now, one vote short. Sixty-seven people died when an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided over the Potomac River in January 2025. Fourteen months later, the legislation designed to prevent it happening again has stalled in the House, defeated not by opposition, but by a last-minute Pentagon withdrawal that cost supporters the two-thirds maj

Washington has a new instrument of culture war: the Operations Specification. On February 13, the Federal Aviation Administration issued OpSpec A134 — "Merit-Based Pilot Hiring" — a mandatory directive requiring every U.S. commercial carrier to formally certify that its pilots were hired purely on qualification, experience and technical aptitude. Airlines that fail to comply, the Department of Transportation warned, will face federal investigation. Transportation Secretary Se

The Trump administration has a messaging problem on oil — and it's sitting at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. Since the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran last week, the U.S. Navy has rebuffed near-daily requests from commercial shipping companies seeking military escorts through the Strait of Hormuz, according to sources familiar with the matter. The reason: the attack risk is simply too high. The consequence: roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply is effectively bo

Three years after a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio — blanketing a small American town in a chemical plume visible for miles — Congress is making its third attempt to pass meaningful rail safety legislation. Advocates are cautiously optimistic. They've been here before. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Jon Husted (R-Ohio) introduced the Railway Safety Act of 2026 on 24 February, mandating wayside defect detectors,

The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a stinging defeat last month, striking down the president's sweeping use of tariff powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — a ruling that reverberated immediately through the nation's freight networks. But for an industry that has spent three years navigating one of the worst downturns in its history, the verdict has prompted relief and anxiety in roughly equal measure. The court's 6-3 decision found that

A Leader Running Out of Road There is something almost theatrical about watching the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) President Sara Nelson lecture airline CEOs about how labor deals should be done given that United flight attendants have been working without a new contract since August 2021. Under her leadership, they have endured four years of stalled negotiations, stagnant wages, and false promises. The only output from AFA-CWA to date has been a tentative agreem

The State Department issued an urgent call this week for all American citizens across the Middle East to leave immediately, as U.S. combat operations against Iran — launched on February 28 — triggered a cascading series of airspace closures, flight cancellations, and diplomatic emergencies stretching from Bahrain to the UAE. The advisory, which now covers fifteen countries including Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE, represents one of the most sw

American airlines are scrambling to suspend flights and redraw route networks across the Middle East following the outbreak of conflict between the United States and Iran, delivering a fresh blow to an industry that had only recently returned to record profitability. Major carriers have halted passenger and freighter services across the region, mirroring moves by international operators including Emirates and Flydubai, which paused operations for nearly three days before caut

The US shipping industry is confronting a severe disruption to global supply chains following Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow but critical waterway through which approximately one-fifth of the world's oil supply passes each day. Senior commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard announced the strait was closed to all vessel traffic in the wake of US and Israeli military strikes, warning that any ship attempting to pass would be targeted. The declaration has prom

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are preparing to take a second run at the biggest railroad merger in American history, after their initial 6,600-page application was unanimously rejected by the Surface Transportation Board in January for failing to include basic required information. The two carriers confirmed on February 17 that they intend to refile a revised application by April 30, keeping alive an $85 billion deal that would create the country's first transcontinental

The U.S. trucking industry was supposed to be turning a corner in 2026. Instead, the war in Iran just moved the corner further away. Diesel futures surged as much as 17 per cent on Monday after the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz choked off roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil supply. Retail diesel prices have already climbed past $3.75 a gallon, the highest in more than three months, and analysts warn the worst may be ahead. For an industry that burns throug

The CEO that 28,000 flight attendants want fired just got a public endorsement from the most powerful flight attendant in the world. Here's what's really going on. Less than two weeks after American Airlines' mainline flight attendant union issued the first vote of no confidence against a CEO in its nearly 50-year history, something remarkable happened: Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) and widely regarded as the most influential labor l

The Trump administration unveiled its Maritime Action Plan on February 13, a sweeping federal blueprint to rebuild America's commercial shipbuilding capacity and reassert dominance over global sea lanes. The plan is ambitious, politically charged — and conspicuously silent on one of the industry's most consequential shifts. Mandated by a 2025 executive order, the MAP lays out a three-pronged strategy: modernise shipyards, expand the mariner workforce, and rewrite regulations