WHAT'S GOING ON WITH FIRST-CLASS LETTERS?
First-Class letters are the cream of USPS products. They fly through equipment, tend to be very machinable, and make money. They are the flagship of postal products. And the flagship is foundering. This week is the sixth week in a generally deteriorating picture, with only 73.4% of First-Class letters arriving on time. This is not performance we expect in the middle of the summer. Six weeks ago, 83.59% of FC letters were delivered on time. That is a significant decline.
On the more positive side, Marketing Mail letters and flats performed well, beating their YTD averages comfortably.
Looking for areas with FC letter performance issues, letters to Florida were particularly slow, averaging 5.27 days to deliver. There was no one SCF that dragged them down — mail just delivered slowly across the board.
On the induction side of the equation, FC mail originating in Wisconsin and New Jersey was slower than average.
Volumes will begin to increase from now until the elections. Hopefully performance will stabilize.
