Who moves the U.S. Mail?

[citabriapilot]

Might be a dumb question, but I just realized I've never heard or seen anything about it. Someone today told me the military did, but that didn't seem to make sense considering how much mail there is.

Anyone else?

 

[kevdog]

FedEx has a big mail contract, and freight forwarders and ACMI operators pick up everything else.

 

[DrProc]

A lot of passenger airlines carry mail too.

 

[vallyman]

I agree with the DR. the us air mail is what a lot of airlines used to off set the flights that have almost no people but the mail needs to be carried.

I think that if if comes between your bags and the mail the mail comes first

 

[Steveair]

I'd say every other walk around I do, I notice the rampers unloading mail from our planes. (SkyWest Airlines).

 

[flyboyzii]

When I flew the Fed Ex "Feeder" (Caravan) I flew all of the Priority overnight mail every night.

 

[bobs98tlr]

A lot of mainline service moves U.S. Mail.

 

[Lou3]

I was once in mgt with a major carrier. The airlines carry a ton and more of mail. All of them. However, bags travel before mail. There are different classes of mail and the higher the priority mail goes first. You ship it in windows of flights, there are usually 3 or so that will get it to its destination and you put it on the ones that have the space. It becomes very difficult to accomodate all of the mail and passenger and bags during the Holidays. Other than that though, it usually not too much of a problem.

 

[Otterjock]

Who moves the US mail?

What ever happened to the operators we used to see who's aircraft were painted in US Postal Service colors.

 

[cforst513]

i asked my dad, who is a supervisor at a post office. he seems to think that the USPS still has a flight department somewhere. but all that has been said about FedEx and commercial airlines is true. FedEx made a deal w/ the USPS so that they would put FedEx drop boxes at each post office location.

 

[DC-8_FR8]

Who moves the US mail?

What ever happened to the operators we used to see who's aircraft were painted in US Postal Service colors.

That was a Ryan contract.

 

[typhoonpilot]

....and here I thought the U.S. Postal service moved the U.S. mail :smash: .


TP

 

[Peardc10]

Who fly's the mail..................just about everyone

Our company hauls a lot of mail, and we do not have that many planes. I bet we average 5000 lbs. per flight, at .25cents per pound. Most of the domestic carriers all have some sort of contract with the US postal service.

Its a great way to help pay for the gas!


SEE YA.......

 

[flyinyourShorts]

That was a Ryan contract.

It was actually an Emery contract, subcontracted to many other companies. Ryan and Express One did the Express/Priority mail overnight stuff, and a whole bunch of other operators did the daytime overflow operation. Ryan and Express One were the only ones with the USPS paintjob though.

God how I miss postal flying, those were some good times!

 

[cforst513]

best.... avatar.... EVER!!!!

 

[PHXFLYR]

It was actually an Emery contract, subcontracted to many other companies. Ryan and Express One did the Express/Priority mail overnight stuff, and a whole bunch of other operators did the daytime overflow operation. Ryan and Express One were the only ones with the USPS paintjob though.

God how I miss postal flying, those were some good times!

And a great way of jumpseating back and forth to work,too!


PHXFLYR

 

[AerroMatt]

....and here I thought the U.S. Postal service moved the U.S. mail :smash: .


TP

Au contrare. USPS handles local pick up/delivery and sorting work, but they contract out nearly all the long line work as far as i could ever make out. I've delivered numerous loads of mail to USPS bulk mail centers in places like downtown Los Angeles, and Columbus OH. LA was great so long as the load was palletized. I hated Columbus because it was usually a floor load and the USPS workers refused to unload it, so the Driver had to unload his trailer by hand onto a conveyor belt. It didn't matter how exhausted he was from driving all night to get the load there on time, he had to fingerprint all those boxes.

 

[P-Dawg_QX]

HA! Funny, I was just about to start a thread asking a similar question - "What happened to the USPS airplanes?" Had it all written out and everything. Had a funny feeling that I should do a search on USPS first, and alas, this thread appears, answering all my questions. Wasn't even an old thread, either. Strange.

:laugh:

 

[SlapShot]

Didn't Kitty Hawk have a contract for a bunch of west coast flying? I remember seeing a USPS Kitty Hawk bird along side a Express One 72 in PDX. I also remember having to wait for a Kitty Hawk 72 to arrive from somewhere while we were waiting in DEN.

 

[freightdogfred]

Here's the scoop-

Priority and Express mail is delivered by Fedex, the result of a 6 billion dollar contract awarded to them. This was the result of the USPS terminating their contract with CNF, the parent company of Emery Worldwide. The reasons for this is another long, sad story. The 727's painted in postal office colors were Emery airplanes, operated by Ryan out of Indy at the Postal sort facility. (otherwise known as the "mailbox".) This sort was primarily Express Mail. The Priority mail sort was in Dayton. The Express one 727's did the "W" net, which was a west coast sort out of Mather.

Fedex does the whole thing now...and if they hired me I could tell you where.