AusPost cuts mail delivery days as parcels boom

National mail monopoly Australia Post is cutting metro mail delivery services in half as it redeploys staff to handle the parcels boom. It is also signalling delays in regional mail, with five days the new normal for interstate mail.

AusPost is also suspending refunds on late Express Post and axing Priority mail altogether for the next two months, and has brought forward collection times for Express Post and Parcel Post.

Some 2000 posties are being retrained to deliver parcels instead of mail, swapping their bikes for vans and positions within AusPost warehouses. AusPost is currently processing 1.8 million parcels per day as the country remains in lockdown, which is more than the pre-Christmas period.

The AusPost parcel business is skyrocketing, as retailers close their stores and move online to cope with the coronavirus. Beleaguered department store Myer, for instance, is seeing an 800 per cent increase in online purchases.

Mail deliveries will now take place on alternate days in the major metropolitan areas. Regional areas will face greater delays, partly as the country's air service has been severely impacted with the virus and the collapse of domestic air travel, which also carried much of the post. Virgin and its Tiger subsidiary are currently in voluntary adminstration, Rex isn't flying, and Qantas is on reduced service. New Zealand Post has been on alternate days for mail for the past five years.

The changes to mail scheduling will be reviewed at the end of June, but with AusPost already focused in building its parcels business before the coronavirus, and letters making an ongoing loss, many fear the moves may well become permanent.