USPS suspends international shipping to some countries

[Victor]

I had a package to Australia returned to me today marked "mail service suspended"

Apparently the US has suspended shipping to several countries due to covid and assorted transportation issues.

the link to the list of countries is on this page--

https://www.usps.com/international/

[Heliodromus]

It seems the Australia and New Zealand "suspensions" are only for certain classes of mail such as "First Class Package International", and doesn't include regular first class mail. Maybe registered first class mail (non-package) is still supported too ? Seems rather coincidental that this is happening at exact same time USPS is deliberately slowing domestic first class mail (using train+trucks vs planes) as a cost-saving measure.

With all the supply chain disruption news, this may be the least of our problems.

[Victor]

Yes, I think you can still mail letters to Australia. This issue may be more of an Australian problem though. From what I was reading, it seems that Australia has a large backlog of mail.

[six2ten]

This arrived yesterday, sent via the more expensive USPS Priority Mail Express on 30 September. I think it is a cost issue rather than it being a problem at this end - one of our local papers reported a USPS rep as saying "Our ability to find available transportation capacity to Australia is driven by external forces which we do not control" - which I take as code for 'we can't find transport at a price that doesn't lose us money'. There was a temporary suspension of Australia Post (our USPS equivalent) receiving parcels while they cleared a back log, but that is no longer the case, and all the usual transport companies like DHL, Fedex, Toll etc. are still delivering as normal

[Victor]

If you are using USPS, I think that priority mail express is the way to go for international shipping...regular priority mail is also good, just not delivered as quickly.