The US Postal Service has suspended deliveries to Australia
Subscribe
X

Subscribe to Forte Magazine

04.10.2021

The US Postal Service has suspended deliveries to Australia

The USPS is temporarily suspending deliveries across Australia, as its delivery service in the US begins to slow to keep up with the backlog.

The United States Postal Service (aka the USPS) has suspended deliveries to and from a whole list of countries around the world, including Australia.

Infuriating consumers waiting for mail and businesses relying on overseas sales, the temporary suspension was announced over the weekend with USPS revealing that it wouldn’t be sending or receiving mail from 22 countries, including Australia and New Zealand, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and “other unrelated service disruptions”.

The key takeaways

  • The United States Postal Service has suspended deliveries to Australia
  • The temporary measure is a result of the pandemic and ‘other unrelated service disruptions’, the company said in a statement.
  • The service stressed that people should refrain from mailing items to those countries until further notice

Keep up with the latest in news via our website.

The service stressed that people should refrain from mailing items to those countries until further notice, so you might want to ease up on any online Christmas shopping from O/S retailers.

The national postal service began halting services last month due to the “unavailability of transport,” with many items destined for Australia returned to their US senders.

With the recent announcement, any deposited items will also be returned to sender, and for any returned item with a customs form the Postal Service will, upon request, refund postage and fees on mail returned due to the suspension of service. For all other returned items not bearing a customs declarations form the Postal Service will, upon request, refund postage and fees on mail returned due to the suspension of service, or the sender may remail them with the existing postage once service has been restored.

The suspensions in place from the USPS affects anything sent by a range of its international services, including Priority mail, First-Class mail and package, priority Airmail, and surface mail.

So in short, it’s bad news for anyone who purchased from the US in recent times, and with the recent lockdowns sweeping the country, it’s likely there’s a few of you out there who bought some treats to get you through.

This news is just the latest in postal service gone awry with Australia Post once again pausing retail parcel pickups from online retailers in metropolitan Melbourne until October 6 to clear a record volume of parcels through centres hit by major COVID-19 disruptions.

A photo released on Monday from an AP Facility in Sunshine has only reinforced the seriousness of the backlog, showing the massive amount of packages piled up with Christmas-like volumes in just one distribution centre.

The picture of the distribution centre in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine was sent to radio station 3AW. Australia Post general manager of corporate affairs, Michelle Skehan, told the morning radio program that the picture from the distribution centre looks a little bit terrifying, as online shopping booms in Victoria.

“It is very orderly and they are massive facilities, but look, it’s not a great situation we’ve found ourselves in,” she told 3AW Breakfast, adding that lockdowns in NSW and ACT were making the situation worse.

“Even last year when we had workforce restrictions in our facilities… we could send things up to Sydney,” she said.

“Because we’ve got Sydney, the ACT and Victoria all in lockdown it’s an enormous logistical problem.”

There are close to 200 Australia Post staff in Melbourne that are isolating, adding to the mounting pressure on the network. Yikes.

On a positive note, seems like the perfect time to do some local shopping and support our struggling retailers in regional Victoria in the lead up to Christmas.

You can read more about the US delays here and the Aus Post here