USPS Air To Sea Diversion In Effect

Might make for some interesting modern postal history.

https://about.usps.com/newsroom/ser...n-effect.pdf

Especially if it got postmarked or hand stamped by something other than by a postage machine, indicating the change of method.

Wow! Surface mail is back.

Last time I deliberately used Surface Mail was on my 2007 trip to Japan, when I bought way too much stuff to fit it all into my luggage. Even with the lower Surface Mail rate, I still ended up spending over ¥10,000 (then around US $85) on postage. I don't recall just how long it took for my packages to get to California, but it was certainly over a month, maybe even closer to two.

Looking to purchase a fairly large stamp lot from a dealer in Germany I buy from. He warned that it may travel by sea. Won't tie into that possible wait.

At sea, in a container, without environmental controls, with the sun beating on it during the day, cooling at night as well as the humidity; sure sounds like a possible sticky situation for larger full gummed lots.

Thanks for posting this. I have a customer in Austria who is concerned about a shipment and I was at least able to proactively give them additional info about the potential delay. As recently as last week, mail was going door-to-door from my house in Iowa all the way to the UK in about a week, with deliveries to Continental Europe taking about 10-14 days. Bumping that to a month or more is going to be quite the adjustment. I'm sure I'm going to be getting a lot of "where's my order?" messages on ebay in a week or two, given how much I ship internationally.

Kind of surprised that a transatlantic crossing takes 17 days, though. Thought that was under a week with modern shipping, but I guess they're not sent by speed boat.

Second Air-To-Sea Diversion Notice:

https://about.usps.com/newsroom/ser...n-effect.pdf

Like the lyrics in old Bob Dylan song goes, "Times they are a changing!"