Mail early to avoid expected increase
The Postal Service expects to deliver a total of approximately 15.5 billion cards, letters, flats, and packages during the 2015 holiday season.
Additionally, they are projecting approximately 600 million packages will be delivered between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, which is an increase of 10.5 percent over last year’s volume.
In time for the holidays, the Postal Service will offer real-time delivery notifications – meaning customers who sign up for alerts at myusps.com will receive notification within a few minutes of the delivery scan for select packages.
“Customers can count on the Postal Service and our more than 600,000 dedicated employees to deliver their holiday gifts, cards and letters,” said Megan J. Brennan, Postmaster General and CEO. “We have been investing in our infrastructure including package sortation equipment, new delivery vehicles and scanning technology to expand our capacity, improve operating efficiency and provide real-time visibility.”
Additionally, the Postal Service plans to hire 30,000 employees for the 2015 holiday season to meet the needs of its customers.
For delivery in anticipation of Christmas, the Postal Service recommends keeping the following mailing and shipping deadlines in mind: Nov. 7 – APO/FPO/DPO Standard Post Dec. 8 – Priority Mail Express International Dec. 15 - Standard Post Dec. 19 - First Class Mail Dec. 19 – Global Express Guaranteed Dec. 21 - Priority Mail Dec. 23 - Priority Mail Express Following the success of the 2014 holiday season, the Postal Service will again deliver packages seven days a week in select major cities and high-volume areas beginning Nov. 29, for the four Sundays before Christmas. They expect to deliver on average approximately 5 million packages every Sunday during December.
The Postal Service predicts that Monday, December 14, will be the busiest mailing and shipping day for holiday packages, letters and cards. The busiest mailing day also is expected to be the Postal Service’s busiest day online with more than 7 million customers predicted to visit usps.com.