Tag: Air Transport

Several airlines have begun competing for mail business under a series of new U.S. Postal Service performance-based contracts. But optimism about significant revenue improvements is tempered by ongoing passenger airline security restrictions on parcel size mail and volume declines in the postal service’s air express products. The new contracts are a departure from the old practice of equally sharing business among air carriers, and part of the U.S. Postal Service’s effort to transform itself into a modem, cost efficient, self-sustaining enterprise. USPS said it expects the contracts, which became effective June 28, to increase efficiency and improve service.

“It’s the most dynamic change in 20 years,” USPS spokesman Mark Saunders said. “Up until now the airlines have looked at this business as a given. Now they have to earn it. If they don’t perform, they will lose it to their competitors.” USPS uses more than 15,000 commercial passenger, flights to move about 170 million pieces of mail each day. Direct marketers depend heavily on the USPS for parcel, expedited and global delivery services.