That’s no comfort to Joanna Showell of Bellbrook. In recent months, a half-dozen cards and gifts sent to family members in New York or Florida, including money she sent her father because he won’t cash checks, have arrived late or not at all.
The public relations consultant says she won’t trust the service to deliver this Christmas season, the postal service’s busiest time.
“I don’t believe the postal service is what I grew up believing in,” Showell said, noting the postal service’s “snow nor rain nor dark of night” motto does not seem to hold up.
David Walton, a postal service spokesman based in Louisville, Ky., said it was unclear what happened in Showell’s case. But what is certain is that the postal service is challenged to deliver competitive services in the face of budget woes and reduced volume.
In October, at the end of its 2009 fiscal year, the postal service reported a $3.8 billion loss.
The immense volume the service handles is down. Nationwide, the postal service projects to deliver 16.6 billion letters, cards and packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Walton said, down from the 19 billion delivered in the same time period in 2008.
More than 762 million pieces of mail were processed in the Dayton area in fiscal 2009, down from 823 million pieces processed the prior fiscal year.
Despite fears perhaps aggravated by the times and the recent announcement of potential branch closings in response to financial pressures, Walton said the postal service’s track record of service continues to stand up.
According to a mailing study by an outside firm, between July 1 and Sept. 30, for single piece first-class mail, the post office’s Cincinnati district had a 96 percent on-time delivery rate for one-day mail and a 94 percent rate for two-day and three- to five-day mail.
The sample measures the time from deposit to a collection box or post office lobby chute until delivery to a home or business.
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