USPS AIR FREIGHT UPDATE
The US Postal Service (USPS) has used FedEx to carry the vast majority of lives that are flown for over twenty years. Any lives carried by FedEx are flown from the airport of origin to the FedEx facility in Memphis, Tennessee for sorting and then flown out by FedEx to the destination airport. At this point the lives are turned over to the USPS for delivery. USPS has two sorting cycles – a day turn and a night turn.
Most lives are sorted during the day turn. Shippers mail their birds throughout the day allowing the birds to arrive at the origin airport before it leaves early the next morning. Flights leave the airport of origin early in the morning so they arrive in Memphis from 8:00am-10:00am, they are sorted and leave from 2:00pm – 4:00pm. These flights arrive throughout the late afternoon and early evening. These flights normally arrive in time for the USPS to receive them and put them on the appropriate trucks to be delivered the next morning. This means that if birds are mailed on Monday, for example, the vast majority arrive at their destination on Wednesday.
August 15, 2024
The USPS announced that FedEx would continue carrying lives for the USPS after October 1, 2024. There were changes from current procedures. See the attached table for airports that FedEx will no longer accept from and deliver to. There appears to be no reduction in areas in the United States to which the USPS will ship birds. However, there are several major areas in which FedEx will not accept birds. The USPS has not yet explained how they will be accepting birds from those areas.
The other major change is that FedEx will only sort birds during the night turn. This means birds are leaving the airport of origin late in the afternoon or early in the evening for sorting during the night and delivery to the destination airport the next morning. USPS has not provided timetables on when birds have to be mailed or delivered to the airport of origin to make the night turn flights. However, if this system works, birds may be delivered the next morning. Birds would be on the “Express Mail” flights and delivery trucks.
April 2024
USPS announces a new contract with UPS effective October 1, 2024 for UPS to take over the carrying of Priority mail for the USPS from FedEx. The USPS had no explanation on how lives would be handled. Negotiations began to resolve this problem.