Six months ago, the United States Postal Service was delivering America’s holiday mail and packages. Across the network, our average transit time was an excellent 2.9 days from induction to delivery. We achieved this result despite the pressures of COVID-19, weather disruption, and unprecedented mail volume.
After a challenging 2020 holiday season, our 2021 performance counts as a watershed moment for the Postal Service. We focused on ensuring we had sufficient infrastructure, storage, processing and transportation capacity, the right planning strategy, and the workforce to overcome obstacles and operate at a high level of service.
But what we achieved was much more than numbers — we proved that our strategic focus and transformation under the Delivering for America plan is working.
Six months from now, we will begin peak season again, and we are ready. Our focus is to continue fulfilling our mission of providing America with reliable, on-time mail and package service six to seven days a week. We want every customer to know that they can count on the Postal Service this holiday season.
We are prepared to handle 50 million packages per day during the 2022 holiday season. We project roughly 40 million packages will be tendered to us on our busiest days — so we have a capacity to ensure every part of our network remains fluid and on time.
Last year, we added 49 processing annexes and 13 million square feet of storage space throughout the country. We leased 3,300 trailers to add ground transportation capacity and installed package sorters and other automated equipment with cutting-edge capabilities into our processing network. We stabilized our workforce by converting 63,000 pre-career employees into career employees and hired more than 40,000 seasonal employees.
While we performed well last year, there is always room for improvement and opportunities to do better than we did the day before. We learn constantly, we train, we plan, we adjust. Our entire organization is engaged in planning for the holidays today. We are improving processes, developing contingency capabilities, and working with suppliers and customers to ensure the best possible service and performance. We are focused on driving performance and maintaining precision.
It is a point of pride for the Postal Service that our recent on-time performance across the network continues to improve, and we can confidently expect to sustain our improved performance going forward as we optimize and transform our operations. We are improving on almost every front, and it’s essential to our mission to get better every day and do what we say we are going to do. And at just one year into our 10-year transformation, we are just getting started.
Isaac Cronkhite
Chief Logistics and Processing Officer, and Executive Vice President