USPS Says They Are Prepared for 2021 Holiday Season Rush

USPS says they are ready for the holiday season rush as the Postal Service has prepared all year to be able to handle the 2021 peak season.

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Most people will probably remember last year as the USPS network became overwhelmed with packages, clogging up sorting centers across the country, leading to many delays and some packages not arriving well after Christmas.

Much of the mess last year wasn’t due to a lack of planning by the Postal Service but due to numerous issues resulting from Covid-19 safety and working restrictions as well as large shippers dumping parcels into the mail stream when UPS and FedEx throttled intake volume to manage their networks.

USPS Better Prepared for 2021 Holiday Season

Since April, the Postal Service has installed 88 of 112 new package sorting machines which are part of its Delivering for America plan’s $40 billion investment over ten years.

Additionally, USPS expects to deploy over 50 package systems capable of sorting large packages before December.

This new equipment enables the Postal Service to process an additional 4.5 million packages each day.

USPS also is continuing its national drive to hire 40,000 seasonal delivery and plant personnel by year-end. It has also leased more than 7.5 million square feet of additional space across 40+ annexes to address the space constraints caused by parcel growth.

“As we continue to improve service reliability and network efficiency, we are working across the nation to add facilities and equipment at a magnitude not endeavored here in a long time and at a pace that rivals any high-performing commercial enterprise,” said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. “Everyone at the Postal Service has been working all year long to prepare for the upcoming holiday season and we are ready to deliver.”

While USPS implemented the new service standard for First Class Mail and Periodicals on October 1, it did delay the introduction of the new standard for First Class Parcels until after the holiday season.

Even many of the industry leaders we asked in our preview of the 2021 holiday season agreed that all carriers, including USPS, are better prepared this year.

Postmaster DeJoy also feels confident the Postal Service is in a better position for 2021, “The American public should feel confident sending their holiday mail and packages with the Postal Service this year.”