NACA Opposes USPS Plan for Reducing Air Carriage of First Class Mail

In response to Postmaster General DeJoy’s announced plan for the U.S. Postal Service, “Delivering for America,” NACA President and CEO George Novak issued the following statement:

NACA strongly opposes the proposed service reductions for the U.S. Postal Service put forward by Postmaster General DeJoy. He appears to be drawing upon flawed logic and bad data regarding service delays to provide an external scapegoat – air carriers – to account for internal processing delays.

Reductions in First Class Mail air service will have an unquestionably deleterious effect on mail delivery – particularly to rural areas – slowing and degrading an already poor record of service. In fact, contrary to standard business practice in every successful organization, the proposal seems premised on taking customer complaints about service and deliberately making a bad situation worse, increasing costs and delivery backlogs.

Furthermore, the proposal will necessarily involve putting many more trucks on the nation’s roads, dramatically increasing traffic congestion everywhere, along with an accompanying increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Added environmental costs make an already unjustifiable business decision completely untenable. And the cost to taxpayers will be substantial, essentially subsidizing further losses in a misguided effort.

We strongly urge Congress to step in and rescind Postmaster General DeJoy’s plan. Congress has a Constitutional mandate to “establish Post Offices and Post Roads.” This proposal hardly fulfills that Constitutional obligation.