The impact on freight demand of worldwide containment measures — whose duration remains unknown — has prompted the country's largest railway to scrub its 2020 guidance as well as the three-year targets it outlined last June.
"We still feel that the worst is not behind us," said chief financial officer
Automotive shipments remain at unprecedented lows — down nearly 90 per cent year over year, CN said — after an already tough quarter as Canadian assembly plants stay shuttered.
"Automotive is as low as it gets," chief executive JJ Ruest told analysts on a conference call Monday.
"In the short-term we're not too sure what the economy has in store for us," he said. "It definitely feels like we're close to the bottom... How fast the recovery after that? We don't have the science to do that."
CN has scaled down in response to the crisis, furloughing more than 2,500 workers, a 16 per cent temporary reduction on top of the 1,300 employees laid off more permanently in the past six months.
"We haven't quite seen the bottom yet," said chief operating officer
The company has also idled 500 locomotives and 14,000 cars — more than 15 per cent of its railway car fleet — with more heading for storage in the coming weeks, he said.
Despite the current slump in demand across all commodities except grain and fertilizer, CN says it will generate a minimum of
The pandemic hasn't been the only weight on freight volumes this year.
"The illegal blockades really had an unfortunate impact on us," Houle said, citing more than 30 in February.
Rolling blockades that halted rail traffic across large swathes of the country that month came on top of lower container volumes from
The plunge in productivity in
CN shut down its eastern network on
Provincial police cleared the demonstration at the end of February, which was part of a slew of pop-up blockades across the country launched in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs who oppose a natural gas pipeline slated to pass through their traditional territory in
Net income fell 22 per cent year over year to
On an adjusted basis, diluted earnings per share hit
The company says its board approved on Monday a second-quarter dividend of
CN also pledged to maintain its dividend increase of seven per cent this year.
This report by
Companies in this story: (TSX:CNR)
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