Correos y Telegrafos, the Spanish post office, plans to merge its urgent parcels subsidiary Chronoexpres with Servipack, recently acquired by Spanish bank Santander Central Hispano.
The post office, plans to conclude the operation before the end of the year and create Spain’s third largest express parcels company. This was announced by the chairman of Correos y Telegrafos, Alberto Nunez-Feijoo.
Read MoreA scheme for milkmen and women to deliver mail in Liverpool is “worrying and unnecessary”, a union has warned.
Express Dairies started to deliver parcels on Monday after winning a 12-month licence.
The licence limits the number of deliveries over the year to 4.6m, but there are plans to extend it to Manchester and Nottingham.
The Postal Services Commission (Postcomm) says the scheme is not designed to take work away from postal workers.
However, a spokesman for the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) said: “The people who are best placed to deliver mail in this country are the postmen and women.
“We see this development as a worrying and unnecessary development.”
However, the spokesman acknowledged that with Consignia – owners of the Post Office and Royal Mail – facing major financial problems, the granting of licences such as the one in Liverpool was inevitable.
Delays in postal deliveries to rural areas are expected on Monday when sub-post office owners begin industrial action.
Members of the Irish Postmasters’ Union (IPU) say they will not accept mail deliveries from central locations until 8 a.m. in pursuit of their claim for a pay increase.
They will also not be opening their premises until 8 a.m., about two hours later than normal.
A spokesman for An Post said there was no prospect of further talks over the weekend, following a breakdown in negotiations between the company and the union on Thursday.
The impact of the action would not become clear until mid-morning on Monday, he said, but delays in deliveries of up to two hours could be expected.
Rural areas only would be affected, he stressed.
The U.S. Postal Service has given UK post office Consignia until September to fix delivery problems resulting from an agreement signed between the two agencies in January. Under the deal, the USPS sends all Global Express Mail and Global Air Parcel Post packages in Europe to Frankfurt, where Consignia takes delivery. General Logistic Systems, Consignia’s pan-European parcel company, then is responsible for delivering the packages throughout Europe. The partnership lets the USPS use a single point of contact for Europe, but the postal service for months has experienced various problems, such as with on-time delivery and with duties and fees that were higher than expected.” USPS says some of the problems have been resolved. “If the [remaining] problems are not resolved by September, the postal service will consider dealing directly with postal agencies in individual countries.
Read More16 Aug 2002, Deutsche Post has bought the remaining 40% of Servisco Parcel Service, Poland.
Read MoreRoyal Mail staff at a London sorting office are said to have been ordered to search bags of mail by hand to find “test” letters and ensure they arrive at their destination on time.
It is not clear whether post chiefs know delivery figures could be being manipulated, but if the Royal Mail were shown to be unaware of such a problem, it would raise serious questions over managers’ ability to do their jobs.
It could also raise concerns about the credibility of a Post Office report, due out this month, which deliveries’
will claim deliveries in London have improved dramatically. Today, postal regulator PostComm and consumer watchdog PostWatch said they would look into the allegations of a fiddle.
The Royal Mail employs a company called Research International to send out test letters from firms and postboxes across Britain to see how long they take to get to their destination. Local depots are not supposed to know when and where these letters are sent.
The research shows how close the Post Office is to meeting its targets, set by PostComm, to ensure that 92.5 per cent of letters arrive on time.
But the Standard has been told that at one London sorting office, staff are being ordered to find these letters and speed them on their way.
The Spanish postal service expects 50 percent of all mail in Spain to be sorted automatically by the end of this year through a – 300 million investment in new technology. According to the group the plan will make the service as efficient as Germany’s.
Read MoreExel’s half-year results indicate the problems of UK logistics companies at present. Its contract logistics business in the UK suffered a 2% increase in revenue to £584m but a profit dip of 8% to just £28.9m.
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