Record Holiday Mail Flow a Windfall for Postal Service
A record 11.9 billion pieces of mail during the Christmas mailing season brought the U.S. Postal Service a $311-million holiday windfall, the service said today.
The money brings the Postal Service’s current operating surplus to $479 million, Postmaster General Paul N. Carlin said.
The figures cover the period Nov. 23 to Dec. 20, the standard four-week period when most Christmas mail is posted.
Judging by the statistics kept at all 39,000 postal facilities, most Americans wrote their Christmas cards over the Dec. 14-15 weekend and mailed them Monday the 16th. On that day nearly 175 million pieces of mail were processed, the highest one-day total of the season.
Total holiday mail in 1985 was up 360 million pieces from 1984, the Postal Service said.
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