Postal Service Reverses Suspension of Saturday Delivery Plan

The Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service reversed course recently and will no longer move ahead with plans to suspend Saturday mail delivery in August to save money, according to a statement from the board.

On Feb. 6, the postal service announced the six-days-per-week mail delivery business model was “no longer sustainable,” and said it would eliminate Saturday delivery of mail by Aug. 1.

But at a Tuesday, April 9 meeting, the board backpedaled on the decision citing language in a continuing resolution measure passed by Congress specifically prohibiting the end of Saturday delivery.

“The Board believes that Congress has left it with no choice but to delay this implementation at this time’” a statement released by the board of governors said.

The plan announced in February would have changed delivery from six days a week to five and affected only first-class mail. Packages, mail-order medicines, priority and express mail would still have been delivered on Saturdays, and local post offices would have remained open for business Saturdays.

The board continues to support a five-day-a-week delivery schedule, the statement continued, citing cost savings of nearly $2 billion dollars for the agency and “the flexibility to reduce costs and generate new revenues to close an ever-widening budgetary gap. It is not possible for the Postal Service to meet significant cost reduction goals without changing its delivery schedule.”

The board is continuing its search for cost savings, the statement says.

Among the possible cost reductions being explored by the board are reopening negotiations with the postal union to gain new concessions and lower costs and asking for a rate increase, the board statement said.