Status: 17.12.2021 10:32 a.m.
Does Deutsche Post still need domestic letter transport flights? The group could imagine their end – but wants permission from politicians that more letters may not arrive until a day later.
Deutsche Post is considering a possible end to domestic letter mail flights. There are still three aircraft that are on the road every night from Monday to Friday and whose use in terms of climate protection is questionable, said the Post & Parcel Germany boss Tobias Meyer. There are three return flights on the Hanover-Munich, Hanover-Stuttgart and Berlin-Stuttgart connections.
According to Meyer, however, one obstacle is the legal obligation to transport shipments quickly, which would have to be changed: “As long as we are obliged to deliver at least 80 percent of all letters on the next working day, we cannot avoid night flights,” said the logistics manager . Meyer pointed out that the legislature would have to act.
Because if the obligation did not exist, the Post would shift these long-haul shipments to trucks, which have a significantly better CO2 balance per shipment than on the plane, says Meyer. The group manager did not provide any information on whether transport by truck would also be cheaper for the post office.
Post under time pressure
According to the Post Universal Service Ordinance, Deutsche Post DHL must deliver at least 80 percent of the letters that are thrown into the mailboxes on the next day. This rule is called “E + 1” (drop-in day plus 1 working day). “E + 2” applies to 95 percent of the letters, so they have to arrive at the addressee no later than two days after they have been dropped in.
Swiss Post suggests lowering the “E + 1” minimum value to 50 percent, but maintaining the 95 percent target for “E + 2”. Then the time pressure would not be so great and the letters could also be transported by truck over long distances.
Last year, according to Swiss Post, 88.7 percent of letters reached consumers on the next working day and 98 percent on the next but one working day. According to the Federal Network Agency, however, the average is only 84.1 percent (E + 1) and 97.3 percent (E + 2). The difference in the information is due to the different types of measurement. It is unclear which information is legally valid. This has not yet been finally clarified, as Swiss Post has always met the minimum value after both measurements.
The default would probably be missed
According to Swiss Post, the number of letters that are transported domestically by air is currently in the mid-single-digit percentage range of their total letter volume. If she were to forego the flights now and send this amount across Germany by truck, the legal requirement might not be met. In order to avoid this, Post’s board member Meyer believes that changed rules are necessary.
“It is not feasible to make the long distance from the mailbox to the recipient by truck or even by freight trains overnight,” says the manager, who is to move to the top of the Post Board of Directors in spring 2023. If some letters did not reach the recipient until a day later, this would be acceptable from his point of view with a view to avoiding unnecessary emissions. Many customers would certainly accept it if the transport became more environmentally friendly as a result, says Meyer.
“Will be discussed”
Politicians want to deal with the issue. In the coalition agreement, the federal traffic light coalition stated that it wanted to further develop the postal law to include socio-ecological standards. The Federal Ministry of Economics, which has now been run green, also refers to this in its answer to the question of what it thinks of lowering the E + 1 target. “Questions about the future universal service will be discussed in the context of the already necessary discussion about the amendment to the postal law announced in the coalition agreement,” said a spokeswoman. “Here, social-ecological aspects will also flow into the discussion and have to be taken into account.”
The economic policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Reinhard Houben, was not very enthusiastic about a weakening of the E + 1 target. The Liberal points out that many letters would not reach the addressee until a day later. Even in the digital age there are many people for whom the fastest possible delivery of letters is important.
“In order to do without its domestic flights, the Post could use other innovative ways that do not have any disadvantage for the consumer,” says Houben. For example, the Post could cooperate with Deutsche Bahn to transport long-distance letters on trains.