BILLIONS AND BILLIONS
Holiday Mail Volume Sets Record

Customers knew we could do it and saved the best for last this holiday season, waiting until the week before Christmas to flood the mail system with their cards, letters, and packages. That “last-minute” spike helped set a new record as the Postal Service canceled 3.4 billion cards and letters between December 1 and December 24 — an increase of 78 million from the previous year.

“Volume was down through mid-December,” said Postmaster General Jack Potter at yesterday’s Board of Governors meeting. “Then, six days before Christmas, we experienced heavy mailings,” he said.

Postmarks on Monday, Dec. 22, increased by 25 percent over last year. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Postal Service handled more than 20 billion pieces of mail. The busiest mailing day was Monday, December 15, when more than 850 million mailpieces entered the postal system. The busiest delivery day? Wednesday, December 17, when Postal employees delivered more than 1 billion cards, letters, and packages.

Americans also continued to use the mail to show their support for loved ones in the military. More than 24 million pounds of holiday mail were sent to the Persian Gulf and other military locations worldwide, surpassing last year’s military holiday volumes by 11 million pounds, an increase of almost 85 percent.

Prior to the holiday period, military mail to the Gulf region was transported daily on a chartered 747 aircraft. To transport mail during December, 52 chartered aircraft carried approximately 7 million pounds of mail to military service members deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

CLICK AND EASY
The Wall Street Journal in love with NetPost CardStore

Image is everything. Now multiply that by 2,500. That’s a lot of everything. And that’s exactly what customers get when they visit the gallery of images at NetPost CardStore.

Customers can tap into more than 2,500 images — everything from birthday graphics to animal artwork to sports photos and lots more — when they create their own cards at the online card store on USPS.com.

Holiday images? Plenty of them, too. Customers can use more than 300 holiday images to create their own cards. Or they can use their own images. Talk about user-friendly!

The Wall Street Journal recently called NetPost CardStore “the biggest time-saver of all” in its comparison of five companies offering computer-generated, customized greeting cards. It cited the Postal Service’s “quick delivery and easy-to-use web site.”

Customers can surf over to NetPost CardStore. No parking lot traffic or mall hassles, it’s open 24/7 on USPS.com...part of the Post Office that never sleeps. And, don’t forget, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.

COMMISSION UPDATE

It’s been a year since President Bush issued an executive order establishing the President’s Commission on the Postal Service. The commission’s purpose was to “identify the operational, structural, and financial challenges facing the Postal Service; examine potential solutions; and recommend legislative and administrative steps to ensure the long-term viability of postal service in the United States.”

The nine-member bipartisan commission held public meetings, met with stakeholders and heard testimony from USPS officials, mail industry leaders, union representatives, and postal experts. After eight months, the commission issued its final report July 31.

The president recently met with commission members, thanking them for their service and hard work. Postmaster General Jack Potter also was in attendance.

The president urged Congress to enact postal reform legislation based on five principles that were in the commission’s final report:

• Implement Best Practices: Ensure that the Postal Service’s governing body is equipped to meet the responsibilities and objectives of an enterprise of its size and scope.
• Transparency: Ensure that important factual information on the Postal Service’s product costs and performance is accurately measured and made available to the public in a timely manner.
• Flexibility: Ensure that the Postal Service’s governing body and management have the authority to reduce costs, set rates, and adjust key aspects of its business in order to meet its obligations to customers in a dynamic marketplace.
• Accountability: Ensure that a Postal Service operating with greater flexibility has appropriate independent oversight to protect consumer welfare and universal mail service.
• Self-Financing: Ensure that a Postal Service operating with greater flexibility is financially self-sufficient, covering all of its obligations.

FINANCIAL SUCCESS

The Postal Service exceeded its financial plan for Fiscal Year 2003 by $300 million — despite declining mail volume and an expanding delivery network — thanks to operational efficiencies employed during the year. The Postal Service finished the year with a total net income of $3.9 billion with the recently enacted change to retirement funding is incorporated. Even without the change in Legislation, the Postal Service would have ended the year with a net income of $900 million.

Speaking at the monthly Board of Governors meeting, Chief Financial Officer Richard Strasser said that $3.8 billion of the net income was used to pay down Postal Service debt.

Based on the audited financial results, the Postal Service had an unprecedented fourth straight year of productivity gains. Productivity was twice that anticipated by the financial plan.

Strasser credited the year’s success to Postmaster General Jack Potter’s continued focus on implementing the Transformation Plan, the Postal Service’s blueprint for the future.