Delivery drivers and posties are set to deliver as many as 350,000 parcels across Victoria each and every weekend for the rest of the year.
Despite delays and ongoing supply chain difficulties being felt around the globe, Australia Post reports that its facilities in Melbourne are processing on average a million parcels each day, enough to fill the seats of the MCG ten times.
Around 1000 additional team members are also being recruited in Victoria to help sort parcels and mail, drive trucks, forklifts and delivery vans, and to help customers with their queries.
The impacts of COVID have been particularly challenging in Melbourne, with hundreds of Australia Post team members having been forced to isolate.
Even so facilities, subject to COVID-safe restrictions, posties and drivers have continued to deliver record numbers of parcels for Victorians, including each Saturday and Sunday.
Australia Post has also added six additional pop-up sites to process parcels- at Dandenong, Somerton, Tottenham, Thomastown and two at Derrimut.
The national mail delivery service confirmed its two biggest permanent facilities at Sunshine West are processing more than 450,000 parcels a day.
To counter a significant reduction in passenger flights, Australia Post has also doubled its weekly freighter flights into Victoria to 60, to help carry more than 340 tonnes of parcels a week, with another 32 tonnes arriving via extra weekly Express Post trucks.
Australia Post General Manager Corporate Affairs Michelle Skehan said the difficult decision to pause parcel collections from eCommerce retailers in Greater Melbourne had been vital in returning volumes in Victorian facilities to safe levels, with 4.5 million parcels processed during that time, while deliveries continued across the city.
“We haven’t stopped delivering and have broken delivery records throughout the pandemic even as we’ve been faced with challenges like having large numbers of our Melbourne people in isolation,” said Skehan.
“We recognise that people want their parcels to arrive as quickly as possible, especially as we head into Christmas, and that means on weekends too, and our people really are doing all they can to meet the huge demand under challenging times.”
Weekend deliveries will remain across Melbourne and major regional centres for the rest of the year, and where volumes are high in other regional areas.
