Expeditors International of Washington, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPD) today announced third quarter 2021 financial results including the following highlights compared to the same quarter of 2020:

• Diluted Net Earnings Attributable to Shareholders per share (EPS¹) increased 87% to $2.09
• Net Earnings Attributable to Shareholders increased 88% to $359 million
• Operating Income increased 94% to $490 million
• Revenues increased 84% to $4.3 billion
• Airfreight tonnage volume and ocean container volume increased 28% and 15%, respectively

“In a marketplace that remains severely impacted by labor and infrastructure constraints throughout the supply chain, our people continue to perform at their best by identifying, accessing, and securing available space,” said Jeffrey S. Musser, President and Chief Executive Officer. “There remains an overall deficiency of available air capacity due to a reduction of passenger belly space on international routes. Despite increased utilization of air charters, there is insufficient capacity to meet the current high demand. At the same time, unprecedented congestion at the ocean ports due to labor and equipment shortages is disrupting sailing schedules and causing significant delays. There is simply not enough equipment, warehouse and pier space, or people in the locations where they are needed to meaningfully reduce the significant backlogs of cargo. Handling record volumes under these conditions has not been easy, but we continue to set records for company performance by servicing our customers at the highest level.

“The entire global infrastructure for the movement of cargo remains stretched beyond its limits. While certain ocean ports are particularly constrained, most notably on the U.S. west coast, many of the current bottlenecks stem from supply and infrastructure issues that were building well before the pandemic. The global reaction to COVID-19, including lockdowns, facility closures and spikes in demand for certain products, exposed and exacerbated those long-simmering issues. Unfortunately, there is no simple or immediate fix. As a result, we believe these current conditions are likely to last well into 2022.

“We also believe, as we always have, that our company’s best strategy for achieving ongoing success in servicing our customers and growing our business depends on our strong culture of close collaboration. As many of the most restrictive pandemic precautionary measures are being lifted around the world, we are carefully bringing our people back to on-site work in a measured and cautious manner. Our view is that the stresses of so many of our people working at such an accelerated pace from so many remote, off-site locations would be unsustainable over the long term.”

Bradley S. Powell, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, added, “Our strong results continue to demonstrate our ability to adapt and perform exceptionally well on behalf of our customers under very trying conditions. Demand continues to far outstrip available capacity. Buy and sell rates for both air and ocean remain elevated and erratic. Despite those conditions, our operating efficiency is strong, even as each individual shipment requires more resources and greater attention, and conditions change rapidly. While we are performing exceptionally well under these trying circumstances, I continue to caution that we are unable to predict how long the current conditions will persist or the impact they will have on our future operations.”

Expeditors is a global logistics company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The Company employs trained professionals in 176 district offices and numerous branch locations located on six continents linked into a seamless worldwide network through an integrated information management system. Services include the consolidation or forwarding of air and ocean freight, customs brokerage, vendor consolidation, cargo insurance, time-definite transportation, order management, warehousing and distribution and customized logistics solutions.

During the nine months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020, we repurchased 2.0 million and 4.4 million shares of common stock at an average price of $110.45 and $71.41 per share, respectively.

Investors may submit written questions via e-mail to: investor@expeditors.com. Questions received by the end of business on November 5, 2021 will be considered in management's 8-K “Responses to Selected Questions.”

Disclaimer on Forward-Looking Statements:

Certain statements contained in this news release are “forward-looking statements,” based on management’s views with respect to future events and underlying assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding the future stabilization of supply/demand imbalance and rate volatility; the continued unsettled operating environment due to continued scarce air and ocean capacity; elevated air and ocean pricing and an increase in demand for such services; port congestion; equipment imbalances; labor shortages; insufficient warehouse and pier space; trade disruptions; rising fuels costs; and the uneven lifting of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Future financial performance could differ materially because of factors such as: our ability to leverage the strength of our carrier relationships to secure space; the strength of our non-asset-based operating model; our expectation that the supply/demand imbalance and rate volatility will continue for the remainder of 2021 and likely well into 2022, and will stabilize over time; our ability to re-open our offices for return-to-work; our ability to continue to enhance our productivity; our expectation that the current unprecedented operating conditions will not persist long-term; our ability to invest in our strategic efforts to explore new areas for profitable growth; and our ability to remain a strong, healthy, unified and resilient organization. The COVID-19 pandemic could have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K, including, without limitation, those related to the success of our strategy and desire to maintain historical unitary profitability, our ability to attract and retain customers, our ability to manage costs, interruptions to our information technology systems, the ability of third-party providers to perform and potential litigation as updated by our reports on Form 10-Q, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These and other factors are discussed in the Company’s regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those in “Item 1A. Risk Factors” of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release speak only as of this date and the Company does not assume any obligation to update them except as required by law.