DHL Shipping From Germany

Has anyone else been awaiting a shipment via DHL from Germany?

Mine entered the mail stream on 12-22. Still a bit early; mine entered the post that day. Probably by next week?

Pretty optimistic in my opinion. Due to the new strain of COVID19 a lot of mail is being held before shipping overseas. On another forum that I am a member of, mailings seem to be in the range of 4 - 8 weeks from Germany.

I am currently into week 7 waiting for an international mailing.

I am waiting for a shipment to leave Germany that has been tendered and it has not moved in three weeks.

I received a shipment from Germany yesterday along with two from Switzerland. All three ordered and shipped December 14. Absolutely nothing to worry about


Peter

I'm perfectly OK with not hearing until next week. I'm assuming it will be here by the end of January.

Thanks to a couple auctions closing recently and an ebay buying spree, I currently have 17 shipments inbound from Germany. It appears as if anything that's first-class-letter-sized is moving pretty well, but anything larger is a long wait. Some appear to either be lost, or USPS has just given up on scanning.

Also, because I'm at an APO address, I don't really hold USPS responsible for delays once it's in the APO system. At that point, it's inefficiency of an entirely different branch of the government.

A quick survey:

Registered large flat — left Germany 14 Oct, in US since 10 Nov, still bouncing around between distribution centers (has been misrouted 9 times since entering US, likely due to shipper making a ZIP code error)
Registered large flat — left Germany 16 Nov, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered large flat — left Germany 2 Dec, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered large flat — left Germany 10 Dec, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered letter — left Germany 15 Dec, arrived US on 22 Dec, misrouted to West Fargo Distribution Center, entered APO system 4 Jan
Registered letter — left Germany 17 Dec, arrived US on 23 Dec, entered APO system 28 Dec
Registered letter — left Germany 17 Dec, arrived US on 23 Dec, entered APO system 2 Jan
Registered letter — left Germany 17 Dec, arrived US on 23 Dec, still in NY
Registered letter — left Germany 23 Dec, arrived US on 3 Jan, misrouted to Sacramento Distribution Center a/o 6 Jan
Registered letter — left Germany 28 Dec, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered letter — left Germany 29 Dec, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered letter — left Germany 30 Dec, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered letter — left Germany 30 Dec, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered letter — left Germany 30 Dec, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered letter — left Germany 31 Dec, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered large flat — left Germany 31 Dec, hasn't been scanned in US
Registered large flat — left Germany 6 Jan, hasn't been scanned in US

I did have one arrive today:
Registered letter — left Germany 16 Dec, arrived US on 23 Dec, entered APO system 27 Dec, arrived to me 7 Jan

I should also note that on all of these, the time from acceptance in Germany to outbound scanning in Frankfurt was typically 1-3 days. No idea how long they sat in Frankfurt before getting on a plane to New York, but the German end appears to be functioning pretty smoothly.

To the extent that helps set your expectations… May you have better luck than I.

You, and Santa get along well, I see

May all you material arrive, safely.
I still stand by my record, apart from the VERY FIRST trade I made, with a professor at a Yugoslav University, I have never lost an item,
outgoing, or incoming in 15-17 odd years.
Exceptional history of modern post.

OMG, Postmaster!! You are right - there's the (name whatever country) Postal system, then there's the USPS, then there's the APO system. Now give all 3 of them an opportunity to mess things up, and you've got a race to the bottom. All I can say is... good luck to you, sir. I hope they all deliver a little sooner rather than later.

That's the danger of creating blank album pages for others to download. As I create the pages, I keep running into blank spaces. And blank spaces must be filled!

Just for fun today I copied and pasted the routing # on USPS. I got this:

Your package is on its way to a USPS facility. Sign up to get updates, and we'll send you a delivery date and time when available.

After a reread, all this says is that they got notified a shipment is coming. It does look like it got checked in at an airport on 12-22. Could still be there I guess. I tried this last week and there was no record.

Progress..

I have had a package sitting in Frankfurt since 15 December.

Just now I got this notice from USPS:

Hello xxxxx,

We have received notice that the originating post is preparing to dispatch this mail piece.

Tracking Number: CD424524737DE

So.......it's been sitting there at a shipping terminal in Germany all this time. Now the shipping.

In my case they have been "preparing to dispatch" since 16 December. Best of luck. I believe that there are many less flights out of Europe into the US now and that is some of the problem.

I also have a package "preparing to dispatch" from Ukraine for weeks but that is another topic.

This is an album from Schaubek. Hope this means it got out of there this weekend.

For Stamps1962 and rogdcam,

Because of the way they scan items, it's impossible to tell whether it's sitting in Frankfurt waiting for transport, or sitting in NY waiting to be scanned in. I've had it happen both ways — packages sitting in Franfurt for months waiting for space on a plane, and sitting in NY waiting for USPS to get around to it — and the scan history appears the same.

The cancellation of so many commercial airline flights is causing much of the problem with international shipments. I had one auctionhouse that had to ship my lot via surface (ship) instead of air because there was a period where DHL simply wasn't accepting packages to the US by air unless shipped at the highest, most expensive rate.

Also, unrelated but a sign of the state of things — I transited through Tokyo Haneda, Tokyo Narita, and Seoul Inchon airports yesterday, and I'd estimate that fully 75% of the pre-COVID flight schedule was cancelled (the flights still show up on the big boards in the airport even though cancelled). I'd imagine it's similar for flights from Europe. That's the downside of relying on contracts with commercial carriers instead of having a dedicated fleet like FedEx, UPS, etc.

@stamps1962, Please be patient. Things have just gotten pretty bad again both over there and here. I have two sisters and a brother over in Europe and they all agree it is scary.


Peter