Sunday Deliveries - affect on Mail Centres and the Network

[Lockardian]

I know the issue of Sunday parcel deliveries is being discussed in other threads, but nothing appears to have been said regarding how and if this will affect mail centre operations.

Is the plan is to deliver some of Friday’s 2C/T48 collections and Saturday’s 1C/T24 collections on a Sunday rather than a Monday? Most of this currently hits the destination MC on Sunday morning and the inward sort is done on Sunday day shift - but if I’m understanding correctly then this traffic would need to be arrive on Saturday for an overnight sort, meaning shift changes for drivers and distro/processing staff.

Sorry if I’m way of the mark and have got hold of the wrong end of the packet!

[harwork224]

Sunday delivery will only be for certain customers. Direct injections into mail centres will occur during the Saturday night shift from the customers or from NDC. As of now the only customer sending parcels for Sunday delivery is ZARA. The mail is dispatched with the covid test kits on Sunday morning to the LAT hubs .

[Grumpyoldmailman]

They have already been sending what would have been Mondays parcels on a Sunday to us so the docket kings actually have something to deliver on the Sunday o/t

[Lockardian]

Ah, I misunderstood. There were rumours at my mail centre that there were to be full Sunday parcel deliveries, not just from or to certain customers.

So is this likely to involve all mail centres, and would the packets arrive at the mail centres pre-sorted (like a cross-dock)? BTW, what are LAT hubs?

[Steve_claret]

LAT (Later Acceptance Times) Hubs are usually biggish Delivery Offices who will deliver parcels to a bigger area than they usually deliver to.

[Lockardian]

Well, our MC now has a skeleton staff in from next Saturday night so it’ll be interesting to see what comes through. We may end up working on the inward sort for Monday morning if the trailers arrive overnight.

[Lockardian]

Just wondering what the procedures are at other mail centres regarding which items get dispatched for Sunday delivery.

Originally we were told to watch for packets or Yorks with a gold spot sticker on them - these would be T24s from selected companies who had enrolled in the scheme.

Now, however, we dispatch all T24s that arrive on a Saturday night/Sunday morning (even the parcel Joe Bloggs posted to his mum) to the LATs for Sunday delivery attempt.

The Royal Mail site still says that this service available if you have a business account, and “to access Sunday Deliveries with Royal Mail Tracked 24® with a Business Account, you need to send a minimum of 1,000 items per year, per site, across UK, International Tracking and Signature and Tracked Returns services.” It doesn’t specifically say you HAVE to be a business/have a business account to access Sunday deliveries - and I suppose the quote above is to do with large volumes of mail that needs to be collected/ingested into the network on Saturdays. I don’t know - there would be collections anyway for standard deliveries.

So it’s unclear if any old T24 should have a Sunday delivery attempt - but in our case that’s what happens!

BTW, we now get Specials that are “gold spotted” too which must be delivered on Sundays. Other specials wait n until Monday. In so many ways T24s seem to get as much or more priority than SDs, which makes the SD service less attractive (except for expensive items and the higher compensation rates).

On another note it amuses me how many gold-spotted T24s come through addressed to businesses or c/o post offices that are closed on Sundays anyway!!

[N|M]

We process all T24 as gold spots just in case of miss sorts, still find alot in packet sleeves, the businesses that are closed sunday etc we end up rescanning them sunday night for monday as the DO''s send them back never understand that one why not keep the item in the DO ?

As for specials not seen any yet for sunday del

[SpacePhoenix]

We process all T24 as gold spots just in case of miss sorts, still find alot in packet sleeves, the businesses that are closed sunday etc we end up rescanning them sunday night for monday as the DO''s send them back never understand that one why not keep the item in the DO ?

As for specials not seen any yet for sunday del

Try scanning them as missorts, as technically they've been missorted back to the MC.

We sometimes get redirections through where both the original address and the redirection address come under the same DO. They should also be held at the DO

[Lockardian]

Our Sunday deliveries are done by the LAT DOs (which tend to be the bigger DOs) so they will be delivering on Sundays to places normally served by other DOs through the week. Therefore they do have to send their undelivered mail back on Sunday night as it will then be sent to a different DO. In our case we have four LATs covering about 20 DOs.

[2chorizon]

Our Sunday deliveries are done by the LAT DOs (which tend to be the bigger DOs) so they will be delivering on Sundays to places normally served by other DOs through the week. Therefore they do have to send their undelivered mail back on Sunday night as it will then be sent to a different DO. In our case we have four LATs covering about 20 DOs.

This ^