NZ Post catches up after Christmas mail blunder
The 260 overseas parcels lodged with NZ Post before the Christmas deadline are no longer stuck in New Zealand, and may make it to their destination before the tree comes down.
Last week, NZ Post admitted that hundreds of presents were still sitting at NZ Post’s International Mail Centre despite customers arranging for them to be sent overseas on time.
NZ Post general manager of international solutions Murray Silcock apologised for the 260 parcels left behind and said they had since been sent overseas. They were overlooked as other mail got in front, and were not discovered until NZ Post reviewed its process.
‘‘We genuinely try as hard as we can, we work very hard to get products where they’re supposed to go and normally we do a good job of it. Obviously this time with the process error that’s not great, that’s not what we plan to do, and we can only apologise to those people who’ve been affected by it.’’
There could potentially be a further 50 to 100 parcels caught up in other areas, he said.
As of Tuesday, the oldest overseas parcels sitting with NZ Post were ones posted on December 23.
Fewer planes flying into and out of New Zealand thanks to the coronavirus pandemic was creating headaches for NZ Post, at a time when it was dealing with heavy volumes of parcels.
NZ Post has struggled with logistical problems since February, when China was affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Things became more hectic in New Zealand’s first lockdown before the situation improved, but other countries were still dealing with lockdowns.
‘‘It’s diabolical,’’ Silcock said.
NZ Post knew the Christmas season would be difficult, and made its cut-off dates earlier than usual.
‘‘I think we were pretty clear in most of our literature that we can’t guarantee anything, but if you sent it before those cut-off dates ... we were pretty confident that you’d get delivered.’’
In Britain, Royal Mail was typically clearing items in 24 to 48 hours across the border, so there were no significant delays there, Silcock said.
He was confident that Christmas presents sent by the deadline would by and large have got to their destination. Customers had followed the advice of sending early, he said.
‘‘I think generally we did very well, with the exception of that error that had some of those parcels caught up.
‘‘And mostly we’ve found all sorts of creative ways to move stuff over this time.’’