The US Postal Service said mail delivery has improved to levels prior to the peak 2020 holiday season and subsequent 2021 winter-storm disruptions. However, it’s nothing to write home about.
For the week of March 6, overall service performance for First-Class Mail reached 83.69 percent of the Postal Service’s national performance standard of one-to-three-day delivery.
To put that in perspective, an October article about mail delays in Government Executive noted that on-time delivery of First-Class mail in 2020 reached a high point of around 93% before the novel coronavirus pandemic took hold and 92% over the summer.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in Thursday’s press release, “While we have much more room for improvement, I am proud of the courage and determination our USPS team have shown as they’ve delivered for the American people and worked toward achieving a consistent level of service excellence.”
It noted an “unprecedented three-week impact” on its air network due to the February 13-17 winter storm. “The resulting air network backlog has now been cleared. The Postal Service expects continued and sustained improvement in mail delivery performance moving forward.”
The USPS added that the Postmaster General and the USPS Leadership Team have been working on a 10-year plan to address service performance challenges, but it has yet to provide details on the plan, “which focuses on service excellence and financial sustainability.”
You can find the full press release on the USPS website.
You can also dig into USPS delivery performance data on the SaveThePostOffice.com website.
I did notice a slight improvement throughout most of February and the very beginning of March, but the last couple weeks have been as bad as November/December. I am probably not the average shipper, as most of the boxes and envelopes I ship are via media mail, and most of the first class and priority mail I send are tubes (which take WAY longer than estimates even in normal times with practically NO exceptions). I also noticed that most of my recent first class and priority mail is going through Lehigh Valley, PA, which it never has (it typically goes through Philadelphia). Just before I noticed this change, there was a report on my local news saying that the Lehigh Valley sorting center was experiencing extraordinary delays. Why on earth would USPS decide to start routing my mail through a center it has never gone through at a time when that very center is already backlogged?
@lessthanthreerecords
That may be due to the fact that the USPS hires subcontractors to collect the mail parcels.
I also live in PA, and there are times when I see that my order and/or shipment runs to either the Pittsburgh Dist. Center, or one in Warrendale PA.
It also could be because Louis Dejoy has ruined the efficiency rate of the service.
It created an overflow to which backlogs have become more prevalent.
The same thing happened to PHEAA (student loan agency) when they decided to remove a third shift.
It created a 2 1/2 week backlog for processing payment.
Customers were getting late fees for on time payments. They ‘Thanked’ the agency wholeheartedly. : )
And PHEAA ended up paying a 50% increase on wages for overtime to cover the shift that was removed.
Sometimes management thinks more of making a name for themselves rather than maintaining a good operation. Very conceited, not at all a qualification to be running any operation. May as well be texting in the drivers seat.
I have noticed they are not scanning some first class until it’s delivered. I thought it was my post office and had gone to another with the same result. I had to refund a customer because the order never scanned. It went from California to Virginia and not one time did it get scanned. Took two weeks to get to customer. She received order the day after the refund. Of course.