By: tenthije - 27th January 2008 at 14:20
I’m still not sure I get it.
If, for the sake of argument, DHL takes 2 days to send a letter from Aus to the UK, how long would be a reasonable time for the postal system to do it?
4 days? 5?
Surely not twice that?
You get what you pay for. A DHL letter from NL to DE costs roughly 25 euros, a similar letter by mail at most 1,50 in stamps. No doubt for Australia the price difference will be likewise.
By: andrewm - 27th January 2008 at 13:48
Whilst the airlines that carry mail are “on topic” how long mail takes to get to other countries is not. Please keep this on a Commerical Aviation heading or ill need to divert it to General Discussion!
By: mongu - 27th January 2008 at 03:21
I’m still not sure I get it.
If, for the sake of argument, DHL takes 2 days to send a letter from Aus to the UK, how long would be a reasonable time for the postal system to do it?
4 days? 5?
Surely not twice that?
By: Papa Lima - 26th January 2008 at 16:53
Letters from abroad arrive quite soon here in Sweden, but parcels – aaaaargh! I posted a small parcel to my Swedish address from Washington DC while in the USA and it took 6 weeks! My Swedish friends say that the hold-up is at Swedish Customs, although my parcel (of books) had not been opened, I suppose they X-rayed it.
By: jesterhud - 26th January 2008 at 16:39
United from LHR carries Royal Mail and Military Mail, only US carriers are allowed to carry US Military Mail.
If a couple of containers of mail are delivered to UA say in the morning, then they will generally fly out the same day, there are two types of Civil mail, First Class/Parcelforce and surface mail being sent by air instead, the former will get priority over Cargo, the latter is low priority and has a couple of days before it has to shipped out.
Other airlines treat mail as low priority, and ship cargo as higher priority.
Iberia for example can be pretty slow at shipping mail.
By: symon - 26th January 2008 at 14:01
The other week I sent a package (just a booklet) to NZ from here. I sent it on the Fri and I had an email from the people I sent it to on the Wed saying they had got it – pretty fast in this case!
Do all commercial airlines carry post between countries? Or is it only one airline per country that picks up the mail to take it home or to pass it on for further travel?
By: Deano - 26th January 2008 at 07:43
1-2 days sorting in the UK (standard), then it actually has to catch it’s flight, assume the mail is SLF now, it has to go to the airport, wait for the flight, let’s assume another 1 day for this. Then it travels to it’s stopover point, assume Singapore for arguments sake? now I’ve been to Australia 3 times and it has never taken me 24hrs to fly there, door to door it’s more like 36hrs or more.
So, another 6hrs in Singapore. Then it has to fly to Australia, another 7hrs or so. Once there it has to be unloaded and sent to the main mail sorting office, assume another day here.
Then it has to be sorted, assume another 1-2 days as per RM in this country. It then has to be delivered to it’s regional centre, remembering Australia is a vast country, so it may have to catch a flight again. Once there it may have to be sorted again and then delivered the next day.
Clear as mud? thought so 🙂
Hope that helps
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January 26, 2008 at 12:43 am