USPS to slow mail delivery beginning May 1

By Bill McAllister, Washington Correspondent

The United States Postal Service is expanding its efforts to save more money by slowing mail deliveries.

The agency announced April 18 that it will slow deliveries of first-class mail parcels by moving more packages to trucks and away from airplanes effective May 1.

The USPS called the change an effort “to improve service reliability,” saying air transport remains “more costly and continues to face reliability issues.”

The move will affect about one-third of the agency’s first-class parcels, which now will take one to two days more to deliver, the USPS said in a news release.

It said 64 percent of current first-class parcels will be unaffected by the change, and 4 percent will move from three-day to two-day deliveries.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in a news release that “modifying select service standards is a key growth element of our 10-year plan.”

He has made slower deliveries a key to cost savings in his 10-year Delivering for America plan.

“By implementing the elements of our 10-year plan, we will deliver the consistent, reliable service that the American people and our customers expect and deserve and grow package volume,” DeJoy said.

In an advisory opinion issued in September 2021, the Postal Regulatory Commission was skeptical of whether the proposed changes will work.

The commission said the Postal Service’s cost savings “may be inflated” and that the changes proposed “would not substantially affect the Postal Service’s overall financial condition.”

But the Postal Regulatory Commission, which has to endorse rate changes, did not stop the proposed mail delivery changes. The commission said that some of the issues it had raised should be considered by the agency’s board of governors.

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