Greg C. Gantt
President and Chief Executive Officer at Old Dominion Freight Line
Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter conference call. With me on the call today is Adam Satterfield, our CFO. After some brief remarks, we will be glad to take your questions.
I am pleased to report that the OD team delivered strong, profitable growth during the second quarter, which resulted in new Company records for revenue and profitability. Our revenue increased 26% to $1.7 billion while earnings per diluted share increased 42.9% to $3.30. We also improved our operating ratio by 280 basis points to 69.5%. This is the first time in our Company's history that we have produced a sub-70% quarterly operating ratio. We achieved these results by continuing to execute on our long-term strategic plan, which has guided us for many years and throughout many economic cycles. The disciplined execution of the business fundamentals that for this plan have supported our ability to double our market share over the past 10 years. We are confident that continued execution on this plan positions us to win additional market share over the next 10 years.
The foundation for our ability to win market share is our relentless focus on providing superior service at a fair price. Our on-time service performance was 99% in the second quarter while our cargo claims ratio improved to 0.1%. These service metrics reflect the efforts of our OD family of employees who maintain a steadfast commitment to delivering value to our customers each and every day.
It appears that service quality is becoming even more important to customers when selecting a carrier, which is why demand for our service has remained strong. This is a trend that began to develop with the economic recovery during the second half of 2020 and it continues today as [Technical Issues] are still struggling with supply chain issues. As a result, we believe our customer relationships have strengthened, as we do our part to help our manufacturing customers keep their facilities running smoothly while helping our retail customers keep products on the shelf and available for sale.
Our value proposition also includes having sufficient capacity to support our customers when they need it the most. We currently have approximately 15% to 20% excess capacity within our service center network, and we expect to open multiple new facilities during the second half of this year. These new facilities as well as various other expansion projects that we expect to complete should increase the amount of our excess capacity towards our longer-term target of 20%.
We remain committed to the ongoing expansion of our service center network, which we believe is important regardless of the short-term macro economic outlook. Expanding service center capacity can take a significant amount of time, which is why we have historically been proactive with respect to our expansion efforts. This unique strategy has created a capacity advantage for us in the marketplace, which becomes more apparent to shippers in tight environments, like we have seen in the past couple of years.
With over $700 million of year-to-date revenue growth through June, we are on pace to exceed $1 billion of revenue growth for the second year in a row. We simply could not have achieved these types of numbers without the consistent investment in our service center capacity as well as the continued investment in our fleet technology and the training and education of our OD family of employees.
Our team has shown tremendous flexibility over the past couple of years in response to significant changes in our business levels, and I am confident that this team will continue to build on its success. We have continued -- we have created one of the strongest records for long-term growth and profitability in the LTL industry by executing on our long-term strategic plan. By providing superior service at a fair price and having the capacity to stay ahead of our growth curve, we believe we are better positioned than any other carrier to produce long-term profitable growth while increasing shareholder value.
Thank you for joining us this morning. And now, Adam will discuss our second quarter financial results in greater detail.