USPS online tracking restored after outage

A U.S. Postal Service (USPS) delivery van in a parking lot. The USPS online tracking service was restored after an outage hit customers.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has restored access to its online tracking system after an outage on  Sunday left customers unable to check the status of deliveries on the agency’s website. 

“All issues have been resolved,” USPS spokesperson Roy Betts told FreightWaves in an email on Monday.

Betts said the outage occurred after USPS “deployed new servers and functionality to support our enhanced Redelivery Service.”

The USPS online tracking system appeared to have gone offline on Sunday. Customers began reporting issues accessing the system, and many took to Twitter to complain. 

On Friday, USPS announced an organizational overhaul to help avert a financial collapse. The announcement came after USPS reported a $2.2 billion loss in the third quarter – even as it saw a 50% increase in shipping and package volumes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated a long-term decline in mail volumes. While a surge in parcel business has helped offset the further drop in regular mail, Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer Louis DeJoy told the agency’s board of governors that “the reality remains that the Postal Service is in a financially unsustainable position absent significant fundamental change.”

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