As Australia Post gears up for the upcoming Christmas onslaught, the postal service is introducing a twilight delivery service in selected locations, and extending trading hours at Post Offices nationwide.
Australia Post said it has kicked off twilight deliveries until the early evening in Melbourne and Perth, and will offer extended trading hours from November 27 in more than 380 of their retail outlets across the country.
The extended deliveries and trading hours are set to meet the massive increase in parcel deliveries expected this Christmas season, which is projected to surpass last year’s record 52 million parcels.
Australia Post Executive General Manager Deliveries, Rod Barnes, said the new services were another way Australia Post was pulling out all stops to ensure parcels are delivered on time this festive season, as Australia Post meets record parcel demand.
“In the last few weeks, we have recruited almost 300 drivers specifically to hit the roads after hours across Melbourne and Perth, and we expect our twilight service to help us deliver an additional 25,000 parcels per day in these two cities alone, so if you hear one of our drivers roll up perhaps just as you’re getting home, don’t be surprised,” he said.
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“Many of our Post Offices have also extended their opening times to provide our customers greater flexibility with their sending and receiving in the lead up to the big day,” he said.
Barnes said that Australia Post was ready for its biggest Christmas ever.
“We have invested in many areas to help increase our capacity, including chartering extra planes, putting more vehicles on the road, recruiting more than 5,000 new team members, and opening new permanent and temporary facilities to manage the volume,” he said.
“This year’s lockdowns across the country meant Australians were doing a lot more online shopping all at once, and in October we saw 5.7 million households shopping online, up almost 15 per cent on the previous year.”
Extended trading hours vary according to each outlet and will continue until Wednesday 23 December.
Source: Australia Post newsroom