Deutsche Post is responding to seasonal volume declines in Germany by transferring sortingshifts from three regional mail centres to neighbouring mail centres for three weeks in July and
August, and will also deliver less bulk mail on Mondays during the summer months.The affected sorting centres are in Suhl (Thuringia), Bautzen (Saxony) and Starnberg(Bavaria).
This purely internal measure can be implemented due to traditionally low mail volumes during theholiday season and has absolutely no impact on the transit time or delivery of letters, the companysaid in a statement.
The ‘E+1’ letter delivery services (delivery one day after reception) will be maintainednationwide without restriction. The same applies for the ‘E+ 4’ service for commercial mailings. Inthe time period between 31 May and 23 August, shipments flows are controlled, in consultation withadvertisers, in a way that as few of these advertising mailings as possible are delivered onMondays.
Unaddressed mail will not be delivered on Mondays during the indicated period but either on theSaturday before or the Tuesday after. This way, Deutsche Post can unburden Monday which is theleast busy day anyway with a 10% cost reduction. Through this active shipment volume control, thecompany aims to reduce expenditure in general without a negative impact on customers andemployees.
Jürgen Gerdes, head of the Mail division, pointed out: “We must continue cutting costs to dealwith declining revenues, especially during the weeks with low volumes. And we will succeed withoutany cutbacks on quality. The value propositions to our customers will not be affected.”
Deutsche Post DHL already announced cuts in mail operations a year ago to save costs as part ofwider operational cost reductions to cope with lower volumes.
