AS SLOW AS IT GETS – A SYSTEM BEYOND CAPACITY
The Postal Service delivered terrible service last week. Holiday volume or not, there were clear breakdowns in many facilities. Flats, in particular, were slow, showing very inconsistent service that would generally point to mail being processed out of sequence. Actually, with a holiday in the week, the Postal Service gets a little break – and extra day to catch up, so the actual performance was even worse than our results would show.
For First-Class letters, less than 75% were delivered on time. More than 9% were more than 5 days late. Only 32% of First-Class flats were delivered on time. 36% were more than 5 days late.
Even for Marketing Mail letters less than 91% were delivered on time. Remember, this is mail most often deposited in the destination facility, and the standards are very generous. This matches some of the worst performance we’ve seen in this category. Marketing Mail flats were just awful with less than 62% on time, and 27% more than 5 days late. If you have any flat mail in transit right now, be sure to tamper expectations.
Marketing Mail flats took more than 10 days to deliver in Kentucky (13.22 days), Kansas (11.88 days), New Mexico, Delaware, West Virginia, Nebraska, Michigan, Oklahoma, Maryland, Washington, Missouri, and Ohio. Remember, these are postal days, so Sundays and holidays are excluded.
Clearly there are facilities that are seriously backed up. In some areas it might be quite some time before much improvement is shown.
