Mail delays

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33568, 24 June 1974, Page 12

Mail delays

Sir, —I would like to complain about the so-called postal service from Westport. An airmail parcel posted at Westport Post Office, well before mail closing time, on May 30, was not delivered to an address in Wellington until the next Thursday. By my calculation, the parcel should have been in Wellington that same afternoon. The parcel concerned was well wrapped, cellotaped and tied, but was delivered wrapped in a Post Office plastic bag because it had become undone en route. After a week on the way, is it any wonder. We are quite often at the airport, and there does not seem to be so much cargo that some has to be left behind. I have always been under the impression that airmail was supposed to be fast and efficient. Maybe it is not the fault of N.A.C., but the Post Office because magazines posted from Westport, take a week to be delivered in Christchurch.— Yours etc., MERT. June 12, 1974.

[Mr W. R. Mason, Chief Postmaster at Westport, replies: “As the airmail service is used extensively from this office there would appear to be no reason why the parcel posted at Westport would be delayed. If the correspondent would get in touch with me, supplying full particulars and let me have the wrapper of the article, if it is still available, I would be pleased to invest tigate the delay. I would mention that many of the articles posted are insecurely wrapped and special care is taken at offices to ensure that these articles reach the addressee in an acceptable condition. As a consequence, Post Office plastic bags are used for this purpose.”]