I don’t know where my mind has been–and clearly the US post office doesn’t know where theirs is, either! I just realized I have been postcrossing for two years, sent over 150 postcards–all international–with insufficient postage. I’ve been slapping two forever stamps on all my cards. These cost .55, so that’s only $1.10. The cost to send an international postcard is $1.20. I have had no contact with anyone who received a card saying there was postage due or anything like that. In the time it took me to send 155 cards, I have what appears to be 7 cards that were never registered. With the problems the USPS has had over the last 6 months, that’s not too bad.
I feel guilty!
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Well, it sounds like you mostly got lucky! So carry on, now that you know what the right postage is - occasionally the postage universe throws us some silver linings eh?
Great video - thanks for sharing. Hard to fathom having to get stamps for 4 countries( the example in the video) to send a letter. Don’t even know how they’d do that pre-1874 or even easily today - it would take a long time.
Michiel, thanks for explaining that to us.
Do you know anywhere that lays out international postal routing? I’ve been super curious about this since I joined Postcrossing & I’ve yet to come across anything online that lays it out & I’ve done some searching for sure.
I’m also fascinated at what postal workers know & don’t know or get told or don’t get told about this routing. I’ve even had some workers express frustration at not being able to find out more themselves. Some postal services seem more willing to share info than some.
I’d love to hear more if you have any other info to share please.
I think it is that spreadsheet in that video posted by pmunz. Postal routes are offered based on the timetables of the airlines companies. From what I understand (I was head of large mailroom in the late 1990s that sent out lots of international mail) the sending postal authority picks a particular postal route depending on speed requirement and price. I’m guessing that the larger postal authorities have or had special contracts on the busier routes. Sometimes there is a quality requirement (within Europe 85% needs to be delivered within 3 days and 95% in 5 days), so you cannot always pick the cheapest and slower route. Basically you have a varying amount of mail to all over the world, with different speed requirements and the postal authority has to find the best and cheapest postal route.
From what I understand routing is decided quite late in the process. Picking the best route lowers costs, it is a procurement activity, so not all postal authorities are willing to share all the details. For the customer side it is important that the client (us) gets the service that is to be expected. From day to day you cannot always say which route the mail will take.
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Thanks so very much for this info Michiel. I wouldn’t have thought it would be that variable, but that would explain some inconsistent things.
I have been told several times from a variety of Canada Post sources that mail from Canada to Europe gets sorted in the UK first and yet mail to & from Germany is always the fastest, faster than Canada to the UK often, lol - so that made me think it was going via direct flights rather than through the UK.
I would so love to be a fly on the wall in the routing centres for a week to see how it actually does work. I’ve learned a lot of patience on Postcrossing, but I’m also just super curious to go deeper into how our postal systems work - it’s also helpful I find to think of your postcard travelling along & where it goes specifically. Like this:
Day 1 - picked up & enroute by truck to sorting plant
Day 2 - at sorting plant
Day 3 - on plane
Day 4 - at receiving sorting plant in country X
Day 5 - moves out to carriers for delivery
Day 6 - arrives at receiver’s mailbox
One day, I’d love to have affordable tech to be able to track a letter as it travels, but from what research I’ve done, I think it would only work for packages given the size of these devices right now. I know some postal services now use their own tracking systems for regular mail to give customers updates, so we’re close.
I am somewhat concerned about the “cheapest route/cost” possible as it sounds like there is a fair bit of contracting out/privatization going on and that always is bad news for essential public postal systems.
Thanks again!
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One weird thing I have “generally” noticed is that if I send postcards from post offices that are sorted at Gateway Centre in Toronto, they seem to take longer over Montréal sort centre (I live in Ottawa - so both mine and your mail go through Montréal). I am not sure if it is just me, or if maybe the volume of mail is much higher in Toronto, so it is slower (this was pre-covid).
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Yes, I think that’s true that the volume is higher there from what I’ve heard and given the GTA & the rest of Ontario that would make sense.
So is all our mail sorted in Montreal? even stuff sent within Ottawa? It would explain some delays I have had, but it’s maddening to me if local mail goes there to be sorted - sounds like other Canadian transport systems like flying to Calgary from Ottawa to get to Saskatoon!
From what I have heard our local mail is sorted through Montreal. I used to live on Manitoulin Island, and it was a big deal when they switched our sort centre from Sudbury to Toronto - they truck local island mail all the way to Toronto and then back up to the island. I had times when I was sending within the island and it would take a week for mail to get from one town to the other. The new process is supposed to make mail more efficient, but I’ve seen a huge slowdown for local mail.
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Yes, it depends how you define efficiency doesn’t it? It may cost Canada Post less money, but it’s not more efficient in terms of timely delivery or probably for local employment of postal workers.
I base it on my experience as head of a mailroom, I visited Royal Mail in London, Danish Post in Copenhagen, Swiss Post in Zürich to see their international operation, because we could sent our mail via those operators. It might not vary from day to day, but what I understood from talking to representatives they constantly tried to find the cheapest way to transport the mail to the destination country. For instance if we had a large mailshot you could get a better rate, certainly if the mail was non-priority. They could wait to get a better rate from airlines.
Interesting, it could be that the UK is used as transit country for a lot of the European countries, but if they have enough volume for Germany, they can route it directly to Germany.
In Europe trucks are also used to transport mail.
The quality of mail delivery between certain countries is checked by means of letters with chips in them. The chips are read in sorting centres. The people sorting the mail don’t know which letter contains the chip.
The airlines (and truck companies) are commercial businesses and they charge a rate depending on market forces. If a postal company wants the mail on the next aeroplane, it might be very expensive if the plane is full up and the rate can be low if the plane is empty. Postal companies are constantly looking for the cheapest rate for the transport. The contracts between postal companies and airlines are not necessarily examples of privatization or contracting out.
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There are certain countries / area which are becoming more obvious that they’re hubs for mailing letters. It is to some extent corresponding to the major world airports (since some significant % of mails are carried in the belly of airliners)
For example in Europe a lot of it comes through Germany (maybe lesser extent France / Roissy), for South East Asia through Singapore.
I also remember that a lot of mail for Francophone Africa (e.g. West Africa) do get sorted at Paris Charles de Gaulle / Roissy and rarely, but they do randomly get ‘marks’ that they’ve been through there (i.e. mails that get the stamp / sticker or resealed ‘customs inspected’ but from France or other transit country)
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Hello everyone,
I was wondering if there is any article/video/etc. that explains how the postal services handle international letters/postcards; all I seem to find is about packages.
I wanted to know:
- how one postal service communicate with another country’s postal service;
- how are the flights chosen;
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Newbie here - not sure if this is the right place for my question or not. In addition to being new to PC, I hadn’t sent any international mail from here in the USA in my adult life. While looking for some other info, I came across the USPS notice that international mail requires the “AIR MAIL/PAR AVION” displayed. I have already sent a small number of postcards without this printed on them. So, two questions: 1 - Is it truly required, and if so, 2 - What happens to mail without it? I hope what I have already sent will find its way!
Hey! I had the exact same question when I started. Turns out, you don’t need it, its fine. But I did start a thread in the North American section about this so I’ll see if I can direct you there
Here you go! USA Air Mail?
I didn’t know if the par avion / airmail sticker labels were actually important and maybe required 
. Thought people put that on purely for decoration. At least here, it doesn’t make any difference lol. Whether I put it on or not, it doesn’t matter. And if I put it on, but there’s no airmail service, they’ll still be sent by 
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Thanks so much! Big phew!
I panicked at first too! Haha. Thankfully everyone here reassured me haha
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Here is a link to one of my favorite episodes from one of my favorite podcasts from the fine folks at NPR. It talks about how international postage pricing works. Interestingly, for most of history it worked in the favor of the U.S. but now it’s mostly disadvantaged against us. Fascinating topic and well produced. I hope folks can give it a listen. NPR Cookie Consent and Choices
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