USPS ships mail by sea as airfreight crunch continues

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is shipping mail and parcels to ten European countries via ocean freight "to address the issue of limited air transportation resulting from widespread flight cancellations and restrictions due to COVID-19," according to a postal service advisory dated April 23. The first batch of mail shipped to Europe in this way left JFK International Service Center in New York for the Port of Rotterdam April 20 carrying five containers of mail weighing 32,768 kilograms, according to the advisory. The destination countries affected by this change are Austria, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Shipping mail and parcels in this manner can delay and add uncertainty to arrival times. "Sea route arrival dates are not exact and may vary depending on weather related events and queuing at port of arrival," the advisory said. USPS estimates an additional seven to twelve days of transit time to cover port unloading, customs clearance, transit to a sorting facility, sorting and final transit, and delivery.