WASHINGTON, DC — The United States Postal Service reported new service delivery performance metrics for the first week of the fiscal second quarter showing service performance holding steady for First-Class Mail, Marketing Mail and Periodicals. Consistent with the rest of the shipping industry, the organization experienced some minor delays in both ground and air transportation during the week of January 1-7. The Postal Service continues to address impacts to last mile delivery due to availability challenges due to COVID-19 cases and inclement weather events including winter storms on the East Coast, Midwest and West Coast.
However, the Postal Service’s mitigation plans continue to perform well, enabling the organization to maintain strong service performance scores across all mail categories.
Second quarter-to-date service performance scores covering the period Jan.1 through Jan. 7 included:
• First-Class Mail: 90 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of .37 percentage points from the first quarter.
• Marketing Mail: 91.7 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a slight decrease of .46 percentage points from the first quarter.
• Periodicals: 81.1 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, with an improvement of .37 percentage points from the first quarter.
From Jan. 1 through Jan. 7, the average time to deliver a mailpiece across the postal network was 2.6 days.
One of the goals of Delivering for America, the Postal Service’s 10-year plan for achieving financial sustainability and service excellence, is to meet or exceed 95 percent on-time service performance for all mail and shipping products once all elements of the plan are implemented. Service performance is defined by the Postal Service as the time it takes to deliver a mailpiece or package from its acceptance into our system through its delivery, as measured against published service standards.
The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
