Significant Disruption to Australia Post Operations in Queensland
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Mail delivery into and out of flood affected regions of Queensland is severely impacted and subject to major delays.
Delays to mail pick-ups from post offices, post boxes and delivery centres is creating a significant backlog of mail in some areas and Australia Post is requesting people in flood-affected regions avoid sending non-urgent mail items.
"Although many post offices in affected areas are still open, road access is restricted, and we're appealing to people in all flood-affected regions of Queensland to hold off on lodging their parcels and letters until the floods subside," said Australia Post Managing Director and CEO, Ahmed Fahour.
"People in other states can still send mail to Queensland, but should be aware that mail into and out of the state will take longer to arrive, including Express Post items.
"We are asking for people's patience and understanding during this difficult period. Some facilities have been evacuated, and more than 50 post offices have closed."
One of the two Australia Post national customer contact centres, based in Coronation Drive, Brisbane, was evacuated on Tuesday, and remains closed which means that calls to the customer feedback line are unfortunately experiencing significant delays.
"We are encouraging customers to visit www.auspost.com.au for updates, but we ask people to understand that this is a crisis situation of unprecedented magnitude and the advice about which areas are impacted is changing almost hourly," he said.
"Many of our people have been personally affected by the floods and our thoughts are with them and their families, as well as all Queenslanders affected by this crisis.
Australia Post also announced that it has established an assistance fund for its staff and will be matching dollar-for-dollar donations made by its staff.
"We'll be using the dollar-for-dollar matched funds for relief efforts in areas where our people and operations have been most affected."
"In addition, we are donating $100,000 to the Queensland Premier's Flood Relief Appeal as well as accepting public donations through our outlets nationwide and I encourage all Australians to dig deep," said Mr Fahour.
Australia Post is also distributing disaster-relief funds through some outlets in flood-affected areas, on behalf of the Queensland Department of Communities. For more information visit www.communityservices.qld.gov.au/community/community-recovery/support-assistance
Free mail redirections will also be offered for those unable to have mail delivered to their current address due to flood damage.