US postal service may move back to five day a week delivery
The six day schedule could be reduced with the proposed day without mail potentialy being Tuesday, not Saturday.
Day without mail could be Tuesday, not Saturday. Postal service suffered $2.8bn budget shortfall last year.
The US postmaster general asked Congress to allow it to scale back deliveries to five days a week, from six, the result of a massive budget deficit caused by dramatic declines in mail volume.
The postal service had $2.8bn budget shortfall last year, and dwindling mail volume and rising costs could send that up to $6bn or more this year, John Potter told the Senate homeland security and governmental affairs subcommittee.
Americans’ extra day without bills, solicitations, magazines and other mail might not be Saturday, but could come on another day of light mail volume, perhaps a Tuesday.
“It is possible that the cost of six-day delivery may simply prove to be unaffordable,” Potter said, asking Congress to remove a funding requirement that it deliver mail six days a week. “The ability to suspend delivery on the lightest delivery days, for example, could save dollars in both our delivery and our processing and distribution networks. I do not make this request lightly, but I am forced to consider every option given the severity of our challenge.”
The US Postal service has suffered declines in recent years as individuals and businesses increasingly turn to email for ordinary communications, and pay bills electronically instead of using the post. In the agency’s fiscal year ended September 30, total mail volume declined 4.5% from the year before to 202bn items. Meanwhile, the agency has steadily raised postal rates in an effort to meet the decline in volume.
The service cutbacks could save the agency $1.9bn to $3.5bn a year, Dan Blair, chairman of the postal regulatory commission, told the committee. But Blair said scaling back to five days a week could result in lost mail volume.
The US postal service’s troubles mirror those of the Royal Mail, which in addition to the rise of electronic communications faces a large and growing pension fund deficit. But on its most recent figures, all four Royal Mail divisions were profitable for the first time in 20 years.
