by Linda Straker
- GPC mail delivery service to Canada and Caribbean suspended
- Mail delivery service was a guaranteed service LIAT offered
- American Airlines passengers’ luggage is priority
The Grenada Postal Corporation (GPC) has suspended its mail delivery service to Canada and the Caribbean for the Christmas season because of a lack of air cargo from Grenada. However, the Corporation’s marketing department is anticipating a return of the service by mid-January 2023.
“Right now, we use commercial carriers for the service but because of the increase in passengers travelling with the airline we use, there is no room for carrying out mail. Priority with the airline is for passengers’ luggage,” said Genelle Bowen, Marketing/Communications, Customer Relations Officer at the Corporation.
Mail delivery service to the Caribbean and Canada was a guaranteed service LIAT offered to the GPC before 2020. Though LIAT has resumed service with limited flights to Grenada, it is unable to continue the mail-carrying and delivery service.
The current arrangement is with American Airlines. Bowen explained that mail from Grenada to the affected jurisdictions must first go to the USA before it reaches its final intended destination. “It, therefore, means that mails are taking longer to arrive, and having received notice that the passengers’ luggage is the priority, we cannot guarantee when mails will be delivered, so that is why the service is suspended.”
It was also explained that mail from the UK will also be delayed because of planned industrial action. Airport staff working for the UK Border Force are due to walk out from23-26 December, and again from 28 December to New Year’s Eve. It will impact services at the UK’s busiest airport, London Heathrow, as well as London Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, and Glasgow.
With the GPC suspending its service, the alternative for people who need such service will be private sector courier service providers.
Will anyone notice a decline in the appalling service anyway
Priority with the airline is for passengers’ luggage,” said Genelle Bowen;
is a patent false statement. Airlines prioritize commercial cargo over passenger excluding first and business classes.; they are in business to maximize their profits.
Their service is poor at best, even in good times. How can it be acceptable that a package from the US to Grenada traverses the US in 2 days, its last tracking action is it arriving at MBIA and it takes the post office 3 weeks to acknowledge it has arrived, and 6 weeks if you actually want to be notified.
No airline will prioritise mail unless the mail company pays the commercial cost of the parcels, and they dont. You might think, its christmas, there is a lot of important mail being sent, so they would find a temporary solution but no, lets just not send it… So – they should be renamed – the grinch that stole so many christmas wishes and presents.