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https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/welcome.htm https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international... Afghanistan Guadeloup

https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/welcome.htm https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international... Afghanistan Guadeloupe New Zealand* Tajikistan Australia * Laos Reunion (Bourbon) Timor-Leste Bhutan Libya Saint Pierre and Miquelon (Miquelon) Turkmenistan Brunei Martinique Samoa Yemen Cuba Mayotte South Sudan French Guiana Mongolia Syria How much of this has to do with Australia and New Zealand maintaining closed borders?

irrational 5y ago
Outside of Australia and New Zealand, I can understand most of these (gee, I wonder why Afghanistan?), but what is going on in Samoa that prevents mail delivery?
- angry_octet 5y ago
  Very few flights due to COVID and no vaccines.
smnrchrds 5y ago
Saint Pierre and Miquelon is less than 20 km from the coast of Newfoundland (Canada). It shouldn't be that hard to get stuff delivered there.
- mig39 5y ago
  That doesn't make much sense. USPS can just deliver to France and let them deal with it. Or drop it off in Canada and they can forward it. There's a ferry that runs between St. Pierre and Newfoundland a bunch of times every day. It's still running. Regular flights to St. John's, Newfoundland, even Paris, France are still happening. I don't understand this at all -- it's not like USPS was literally flying a plane to St. Pierre, was it?
- tdeck 5y ago
  Also Samoa is right next to American Samoa, which is a U.S. territory.
  - markdown 5y ago
    American Samoa has had tight border restrictions, including from the US mainland. Samoa even more so, given they had a high death toll from a measles epidemic there two years before covid struck.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      More directly, Samoa is only allowing one cargo flight per week right now and it doesn't go to American Samoa.
- gao8a 5y ago
  I am Canadian and I just learned about this, wow
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    People always think Canada has only one international border: with the US. But in reality, Saint Pierre et Miquelon is so close to Newfoundland that there is no international water between them. So in addition to our land and maritime borders with the US, we have a maritime border with France. Also one with Greenland (Denmark), but that's too arctic for anyone to care about.
  - mig39 5y ago
    When Prohibition was active in both the US and Canada, St. Pierre & Miquelon was the place buy smuggle booze into Canada (and the USA). In recent times, it was the source of tax-free, cheap Canadian cigarettes and Canadian booze. Neither of which the local French population consume, but are more than happy to sell it to Newfoundlanders visiting :-)
- notatoad 5y ago
  I doubt that "too hard" is really the issue here. yeah, if USPS wanted to figure it out, i'm sure they could. but what actually happens is that the USPS contracts somebody else to figure it out for them, and that contractor charges USPS a price for that. if the price is worth it, USPS pays. if the price isn't worth it, then USPS stops delivering there.
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
I guess the closed borders mean significantly less flights into those countries, therefore significantly less room in the cargo holds for mail. My guess is cargo planes are still flying in goods, but they cost a lot more so that USPS has decided it's losing too much money... As far as I know, passenger flights find out the weight of their passengers and luggage, and then sell the remaining space/weight allowance for cargo, I wonder if that's how most overseas mail are delivered. For time-critical or heavy stuff this system is a bit random, obviously, so if you want to deliver something heavy you'd buy space in a cargo plane instead...
petschge 5y ago
French Guiana is where ESA launches rockets from. Anybody willing to bet if JWST is going to get a tiny little extra delay because the US can't get paperwork down there?
shakna 5y ago
Australia has to do with Australia Post and the backlog. They've closed down intake for October, to try and clear the backlog, and introduced new customs requirements.
- paranoidrobot 5y ago
  Domestic delivery for Australia Post is backlogged significantly[1] There's reports that AusPost's parcel facilities have so many packages to process, that they're queued up outside (in some kind of undercover area) waiting to be processed. I only have anecdata to support this, but my own parcels from even one or two suburbs away have taken over a week. A parcel from Newcastle to Sydney sat for two weeks in one of the major parcel facilities with no updates, presumably in the aforementioned pile-up. A parcel from Germany showed being processed outbound in Germany in late April, and then complete silence until it turned up in an AusPost facility in early September. It's all very random, though, and not consistent - two packages from the same seller in Melbourne sent two weeks apart arrived in reverse order one day apart - one taking one week, the other three. They passed through the same processing facilities in tracking. I've now given up having any idea how long things will take to arrive. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-01/expect-parcel-delays-to-continue-through-to-christmas/100504602 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-01/expect-parcel-delays-...

irrational 5y ago

Outside of Australia and New Zealand, I can understand most of these (gee, I wonder why Afghanistan?), but what is going on in Samoa that prevents mail delivery?

angry_octet 5y ago
Very few flights due to COVID and no vaccines.

smnrchrds 5y ago

Saint Pierre and Miquelon is less than 20 km from the coast of Newfoundland (Canada). It shouldn't be that hard to get stuff delivered there.

mig39 5y ago
That doesn't make much sense. USPS can just deliver to France and let them deal with it. Or drop it off in Canada and they can forward it. There's a ferry that runs between St. Pierre and Newfoundland a bunch of times every day. It's still running. Regular flights to St. John's, Newfoundland, even Paris, France are still happening. I don't understand this at all -- it's not like USPS was literally flying a plane to St. Pierre, was it?
tdeck 5y ago
Also Samoa is right next to American Samoa, which is a U.S. territory.
- markdown 5y ago
  American Samoa has had tight border restrictions, including from the US mainland. Samoa even more so, given they had a high death toll from a measles epidemic there two years before covid struck.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    More directly, Samoa is only allowing one cargo flight per week right now and it doesn't go to American Samoa.
gao8a 5y ago
I am Canadian and I just learned about this, wow
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  People always think Canada has only one international border: with the US. But in reality, Saint Pierre et Miquelon is so close to Newfoundland that there is no international water between them. So in addition to our land and maritime borders with the US, we have a maritime border with France. Also one with Greenland (Denmark), but that's too arctic for anyone to care about.
- mig39 5y ago
  When Prohibition was active in both the US and Canada, St. Pierre & Miquelon was the place buy smuggle booze into Canada (and the USA). In recent times, it was the source of tax-free, cheap Canadian cigarettes and Canadian booze. Neither of which the local French population consume, but are more than happy to sell it to Newfoundlanders visiting :-)
notatoad 5y ago
I doubt that "too hard" is really the issue here. yeah, if USPS wanted to figure it out, i'm sure they could. but what actually happens is that the USPS contracts somebody else to figure it out for them, and that contractor charges USPS a price for that. if the price is worth it, USPS pays. if the price isn't worth it, then USPS stops delivering there.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago

I guess the closed borders mean significantly less flights into those countries, therefore significantly less room in the cargo holds for mail. My guess is cargo planes are still flying in goods, but they cost a lot more so that USPS has decided it's losing too much money... As far as I know, passenger flights find out the weight of their passengers and luggage, and then sell the remaining space/weight allowance for cargo, I wonder if that's how most overseas mail are delivered. For time-critical or heavy stuff this system is a bit random, obviously, so if you want to deliver something heavy you'd buy space in a cargo plane instead...

petschge 5y ago

French Guiana is where ESA launches rockets from. Anybody willing to bet if JWST is going to get a tiny little extra delay because the US can't get paperwork down there?

shakna 5y ago

Australia has to do with Australia Post and the backlog. They've closed down intake for October, to try and clear the backlog, and introduced new customs requirements.

paranoidrobot 5y ago
Domestic delivery for Australia Post is backlogged significantly[1] There's reports that AusPost's parcel facilities have so many packages to process, that they're queued up outside (in some kind of undercover area) waiting to be processed. I only have anecdata to support this, but my own parcels from even one or two suburbs away have taken over a week. A parcel from Newcastle to Sydney sat for two weeks in one of the major parcel facilities with no updates, presumably in the aforementioned pile-up. A parcel from Germany showed being processed outbound in Germany in late April, and then complete silence until it turned up in an AusPost facility in early September. It's all very random, though, and not consistent - two packages from the same seller in Melbourne sent two weeks apart arrived in reverse order one day apart - one taking one week, the other three. They passed through the same processing facilities in tracking. I've now given up having any idea how long things will take to arrive. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-01/expect-parcel-delays-to-continue-through-to-christmas/100504602 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-01/expect-parcel-delays-...