Tag: USPS

The U.S. Postal Service had a second-quarter net loss of $303 million, $123 million greater than planned, USPS chief financial officer and executive vice president Richard J. Strasser Jr. told the agency’s Board of Governors at its monthly meeting yesterday. Strasser also said the USPS expects continuing loss in volume during the third quarter, which ends May 22. He said the USPS could lose as much as $800 million in the third quarter if the economy fails to improve enough to increase mail volume. The postal service’s second quarter was from Dec. 1 to Feb. 22.

The U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors yesterday accepted the Postal Rate Commission’s recommendation to increase postal rates an average of 7.7 percent on June 30. The increase will generate $4.16 billion in additional revenue for the USPS. Regular Standard Mail rates would increase an average of 7.8 percent; Nonprofit Standard, 6.6 percent; Commercial Enhanced Carrier Route Standard Mail, 6.2 percent; and Nonprofit Enhanced Carrier Route Standard Mail, 6.5 percent.

Postal officials said Friday they hope sometime rival and current business partner FedEx Corp. will put its lobbying muscle behind a reform plan that would give the Postal Service more flexibility to change prices while retaining its monopoly over first-class mail.
Postmaster General Jack Potter also said they plan to close as many as 500 small post offices and some of their 400 distribution centers. But he promised no stamp hike in 2003 if, as expected, the Postal Board of Governors approves an increase from 34 to 37 cents starting this summer.

The idea of the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service stopping mail delivery on Saturdays is being recycled. Reaction from a random sample of businesspeople ranged from “It’ll never happen” to “It wouldn’t affect us much.”
Bob Brinkman, spokesman for the Newspaper Association of America, said he didn’t expect the delivery schedule to change.
“There isn’t a chance in a thousand that they could stop Saturday delivery,” Brinkman said. “That’s because they have so much volume in the system that if they didn’t clean out their facilities six days a week, their facilities would grind to a halt, and there would be massive gridlock.