Record figures – La Poste handled 202 million parcels in 2021
– La Poste processes 202 million parcels in 2021
Despite the pandemic, difficult conditions and unparalleled volumes, La Poste delivered parcels and letters to recipients on time.
Despite difficult conditions and unprecedented parcel volumes, Swiss Post delivered consignments punctually and reliably in 2021 (file photo).
KEYSTONE/CHRISTIAN BEUTLER
La Poste set a new record with the processing of 202.1 million parcels in 2021. And despite the pandemic, difficult conditions and unprecedented volumes, it delivered the consignments – parcels and letters combined – in a punctual and reliable manner in 2021.
In addition to the parcels, there are some 1,811 million addressed letters that were sent by the yellow giant in the same year. La Poste has met or exceeded the qualitative objectives defined in the postal legislation, it said in a press release on Tuesday. Thus, 97% of letters in A mail and 99.3% of those in B mail reached the recipients on time, she explains. The bar is set at 97% for letters.
Compared to 2020, the punctuality of A mail remained stable (-0.1%), while B mail arrived even more punctually in mailboxes (+0.2%).
With regard to parcels, the quality of delivery was also high: 95% of priority items and 95.9% of economy items reached the recipients on time during the eight-month measurement period taken into consideration. The bar is set at 95% for parcels.
Nearly 1,500 new jobs by 2030
To justify the eight months of evaluation instead of twelve, La Poste argued a case of force majeure for the confinement of the months of January and February as well as for the period from the beginning of November to the end of December, marked by a sharp increase absences among its staff due to the omicron variant. The PostCom Supervisory Authority granted this request.
The objective was met, and even slightly exceeded. Compared to 2020, punctuality fell somewhat for priority parcels (-0.4%), while it increased for economy parcels (+0.4%). “This is a remarkable performance given the record parcel volumes (+9.6% in 2021) and the multiple challenges that La Poste has had to face,” she says.
Even considering the entire measurement period (12 months), Swiss Post proved to be reliable on the parcel front in 2021, improving significantly compared to 2020. Punctuality reached 94.1% (+ 4%) for Priority parcels and 95.2% (+5.3%) for Economy parcels. La Poste says it has quickly adapted its parcel processing infrastructure in the space of two years to cope with the accelerated growth of e-commerce.
Swiss Post expects parcel volumes to increase in the future. It therefore continues to develop its infrastructure, modernize its facilities and build new parcel centers, she explains. The yellow giant will devote 1.5 billion francs to doubling its sorting capacity by 2030. Through these investments, it will preserve current jobs and plans to create nearly 1,500 new jobs by 2030.