FLATS PERFORMANCE CONTINUES TO DECLINE
Mail service performance continued to worsen last week to a point far worse than we have measured since we began tracking performance nearly two years ago. Only 38.3% of First-Class flats were delivered on time, and only 86% of Marketing Mail flats were delivered on time. Letter performance continued to be within standard expectations, delivering OK service.
There are significant network changes occurring within USPS, and most FSS equipment has been removed from service, so there are a lot possible issues in terms of just what mail is being measured. The number of flats on which we are seeing full tracking has diminished, although it is still a large sample. We only include in our results pieces that have a postal issued start-the-clock and stop-the-clock. It would appear that the Postal Service is scanning even less flat mail.
When you drill down to the piece level, the view is not terrible – most late pieces are late by a day or two – but we are not sure what we are not seeing. And, First-Class flats are covered by the same service standards as letters. So, the Postal Service has a couple of issues with which it should be dealing – poor flats delivery, and poor flats visibility.
