Australia Post announces big change to deliveries, trading hours
Australia Post has announced that twilight deliveries and extended trading hours will be rolled out across its network in the coming weeks.
The postal giant is gearing up for what promises to be its busiest festive season on record, by making additional moves to cope with demand.
From November 27, extended trading hours will kick off in more than 380 Australia Post outlets across the country, which will run until December 23.
Twilight deliveries are also being rolled out across Melbourne and Perth, which will enable the delivery of an additional 25,000 parcels per day.
Australia Post Executive General Manager Deliveries, Rod Barnes, said that Australia Post is committed to ensuring parcels are delivered on time this festive season.
“In the last few weeks, we have recruited almost 300 drivers specifically to hit the roads after hours across Melbourne and Perth," he said.
"We expect our twilight service to help us deliver an additional 25,000 parcels per day in these two cities alone so if you hear one of our drivers roll up perhaps just as you’re getting home, don’t be surprised.
“Many of our Post Offices have also extended their opening times to provide our customers greater flexibility with their sending and receiving in the lead up to the big day.”
Mr Barnes also said that incredible parcel demand has led Australia Post to take a number of measures to ensure parcels get delivered.
“We have invested in many areas to help increase our capacity, including chartering extra planes, putting more vehicles on the road, recruiting more than 5,000 new team members, and opening new permanent and temporary facilities to manage the volume,” he said.
“This year’s lockdowns across the country meant Australians were doing a lot more online shopping all at once, and in October we saw 5.7 million households shopping online, up almost 15 per cent on the previous year.”
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Australia Post makes drastic changes ahead of Christmas 2021
2021 has seen Australia Post execute a number of changes to cope with increasing parcel demand.
With more than 10 million parcels being delivered every week, volumes in December are expected to surpass last year’s record 52 million parcels delivered by the postal giant.
October saw the announcement of a total $1 billion parcel boost, with the opening of major processing facilities in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
The construction of five brand new facilities was also announced, as well as the hiring of thousands of new team members.
These facilities are located in Bayswater and Tullamarine in Victoria, and western Sydney and Botany in New South Wales, as well as a new $82 million facility in Perth.
Australia Post also announced earlier this month that many missed deliveries will automatically be taken to 24/7 parcel collection lockers, in a move that is intended to reduce foot traffic in post offices, and provide customers with ease of collection this festive season.
Australia Post Christmas deadlines fast approaching
With Christmas postage deadlines only weeks away, Australia Post is urging customers to get their gifts posted as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
Australia Post Executive General Manager, Business and Government Gary Starr said that Australia Post will do their best to deliver all parcels in time for Christmas, provided they meet the deadlines.
“We encourage people to make a note of these important delivery dates, because although we'll deliver items sent after these dates as quickly as we can, they may not arrive until after Christmas,” he said.
Australia Post has released the following deadlines for domestic post:
December 13 for Parcel Post and December 20 for Express post for most Australians.
December 8 for Parcel Post and December 15 for Express Post for Western Australia and Northern Territory customers.
December 16 for all domestically sent Christmas cards.
Customers from regional areas, and those sending parcels and cards internationally, are urged to organise postage as soon as possible.
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