Postal Service Ready for Busiest Mailing and Delivery Days

Americans will entrust almost 1 billion pieces of mail with the U.S. Postal Service on Monday, Dec. 17, the busiest mailing day of the year. About 275 million pieces of that total will be cards and letters, more than three times the average daily volume of 82 million.

The Postal Service also is seeing a dramatic increase in holiday mail to military installations in Iraq and Afghanistan, with average weekly volume quadrupling the first week in December. For the first 14 days in December, there were 12 additional 747 cargo aircraft dispatched with mail to the Middle East than during the same time last year. That’s almost one extra 747 lift every day. About 20 million pounds of mail is expected to be delivered to military installations around the world this season.

What/When:
Monday, Dec. 17 - Busiest mailing day of the year
Wednesday, Dec. 19 - Busiest delivery day of the year

Who:
700,000 Postal Service employees across the country:
Postmasters, retail clerks, letter carriers, distribution center employees, call center operators, National Operations Center staff, Postal Service executives.

Where:
37,000 Post Offices and stations
269 Processing and Distribution Centers
15 million Post Office Boxes
251,038 delivery routes
Your home or office

Covering the Story:
In person: Visit a local Post Office
Arrangements can be made by contacting media representatives in local markets. Go to usps.com and enter the Holiday Press Room (look for the snowman stamp). Once there, click on the "USPS Local Media Contact" link in the upper right hand corner. Contacts are listed alphabetically by state.

Online: log on to usps.com
Information on free package pickup, customized postage, greeting cards, shipping options, stamps, forwarding or holding mail and other consumer conveniences.
Visit the Holiday Press Room at usps.com for fact sheets, numbers, PDFs, stamp images, audio and B-Roll

B-Roll:
Broadcast quality video is available at www.usps.com/news

Audio: MP3 downloads
Audio News Releases and MP3 downloads on packing tips, letters being processed, packages sorted, Post Office lobby nat sound, packing and wrapping.

Broadcast quality b-roll of mail processing, sorting and delivery are available via PATHFIRE and standard broadcast through the USPS Newsroom at www.usps.com/news.