Postal Service ramps up for holiday rush as officials urge customers to ship early
With the holiday rush underway, U.S. Postal Service employees say they are prepared for what they call their “Super Bowl” — a season in which an estimated 88 million packages are expected to move through the network.
“This is our Super Bowl. We’re ready to go, and we’re happy to serve the people during peak season,” said George Banks, senior manager of distribution operations at the USPS Los Angeles Processing and Distribution Center.
Workers at USPS facilities across the country are bracing for the surge, as package delivery increasingly resembles a team sport. To keep the system running smoothly, officials are urging customers to ship early and package their items carefully.
“If you’re going to ship something in a repurposed box, make sure you take all the markings, labels and decals off that are not ours so those barcodes don’t mix with our system,” said USPS strategic communications specialist Natashi Garvins. That includes removing labels such as “hazardous” or “fragile,” she said.
“If we can’t identify that it has clear art over the window process, we’re going to have to pull that out too,” she added.
Once packages are properly prepared, they move through high-output sorting machines and conveyor belts.
“This building processes around 30,000 packages an hour. Each machine is capable of processing about 10,000 packages an hour,” Banks said.
With so many parcels expected, officials are renewing a familiar seasonal message: “Ship early, ship early, ship early. I can’t say that enough,” Garvins said.
The Postal Service says it expanded and modernized its network heading into the peak season. The agency has opened hundreds of upgraded facilities and now operates 614 package-sorting machines nationwide, increasing daily processing capacity to roughly 88 million packages — up from 60 million last year. USPS also plans to hire 14,000 temporary workers to support its full-time staff.
Customers can expect average delivery times of less than three days, with two- to three-day service for regional shipments, according to the agency. Local post office hours are available on the USPS website.
USPS also launched a live Holiday Mail Counter to track the number of mail pieces and packages accepted into its system throughout the season.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
