Australia Post Urgent Update - Impact of rail closures on deliveries to Western Australia

Dear Customer,

As you know, severe and widespread weather events have caused, and continue to have, significant logistical impacts for businesses across the country.

We'll be keeping you up to date as regularly as possible on how these events are impacting our network, any delays, or changes to our services to help you keep your customers informed around delivery timings.

Following heavy rain and flooding, the Sydney to Perth rail line is closed and will remain that way for some weeks ahead. Unfortunately, the Melbourne-Adelaide rail link has also been closed due to damage caused by a train derailment earlier this week and its recovery date is unknown at this stage.

With both rail lines impacted and based on current information available to us, all freight and logistics services are likely to experience significant challenges and we expect there will be delivery delays.

The greatest current impact is on items traveling via Parcel Post and StarTrack Express to Western Australia from the east of Australia, which by our current estimates, may take up to an additional two weeks to arrive.

While these events are out of our control, we understand how critical it is to keep you updated to help you communicate and ensure the best possible experience for your customers, particularly at this crucial time of year.

What we are doing
• We're regularly scanning to ensure we can identify and track items that may potentially be delayed and will let you know about any impacted items directly where possible.
• In line with increased activity at this time of year, we've more than doubled our usual airfreight capacity, which powers our Express Post and StarTrack Premium services. We are also looking to access additional capacity via passenger flights across weekends.
• To ensure we get deliveries to people's doors as soon as we can, we're kicking off weekend deliveries in all metro capitals and some regional cities and towns this weekend.
• We're closely monitoring our network against our recommended final lodgement dates for Christmas, to ensure they remain accurate. You can find the latest information here.
• We're engaging the Commonwealth Government around participating in national emergency relief and response arrangements.
What you can do
• Our Express Post and StarTrack Premium services are unaffected by the rail closures, and we encourage customers who need to send items to Western Australia urgently to consider these options. However, as more customers opt to use these services, we may see a slight delay of up to two days on these lanes.
• Please consider reviewing your supply chains from the east coast to Western Australia, including lead times on sales events, and adjust your information and communication to customers accordingly.
Please reach out to your Account Manager if you need help to work through specific issues and recommendations for your business and customers.

Once again, thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through these industry-wide challenges as quickly as possible. As you know these things can change quickly and our team are working hard to find a solution to keep your items moving.

Stay safe,

Gary Starr
Executive General Manager
Customer & Commercial