“As we do that, there is, for sure, an opportunity to take excess cost out of the network. Now having said that, we're fighting against pretty significant inflation.”

In context

“n on the pricing point, obviously, the labor negotiations have been very public. I wanted to know to what extent that's kind of influenced discussions with customers on how much yield you might be able to get as you think about 2023? Lance Fritz : Yes. Okay, Ari. So the path to 55 is really pretty plain. It hasn't changed. This year, we ran into a rough patch. We ran the network type. We got into trouble on our crew availability, and we're digging out of that. We've made progress in the third quarter, and we'll make another strong step to normal in the fourth quarter. I anticipate we enter into the back half of 2022 in the 200-plus car velocity. We're essentially there at this point and need to grow from there and then be normal going into 2023, which I anticipate is going to be the case. As we do that, there is, for sure, an opportunity to take excess cost out of the network. Now having said that, we're fighting against pretty significant inflation. You see it in the PEB, but it's across the board on our services and our inputs. We're going to have to overcome that with price, and we anticipate we will. We're confident we will, but that's not helpful on the OR side, right? So you got to create margin somewhere. For us, that's got to be incremental volume. At this point, incremental volume is going to be a more important part of the three-legged stool into the future years. We're set up well to exceed what the industry is going to do. We're doing that this year. I think we're going to do that again next year, and we're going to have to make hay with it. And that's what gives us confidence that we're going to be able to improve margins going into next year. That's the clear path to a 55 operating ratio. And again, I don't think we said”