Question about Thai Post airmail to the US

[DannyS1951]

Might be a bit of a push, but I wonder if anyone knows which airline(s) Thai Post uses for standard airmail going to the US. At the beginning of the month I started a very small test for business reasons on how quickly a small (less than 20g) airmail letter arrived at its destination. For 4 countries I found the following:

UK - 8 days

Canada - one in 12 days and another in 15 days

France - 19 days

USA - Not yet arrived with the first being over 20 days since sending

That got me thinking on which airlines would Thai Post have contracts with to carry the mail. I'm guessing that Thai Airways gets the main share and that could explain the difference between the UK with 5 flights a week and France with just 1 a week. Now if I've read it correctly, there are no Thai Airways scheduled services to the US, so who carries mail from here to there?

Just posting on the chance that someone on the forum actually knows this.

[CharlieH]

Ok, bad news is they use whatever airline is available.Recehtly my parcel to the US took 6 weeks ! After 4 weeks as per regs I chased it up.

 

Here is how my parcel went......

Local Post Office to Swampy airport where it sat for 2 weeks, was then put on a flitght to TURKEY !

Eventually arrive in the US and cleared customs 6 weeks in all.

Apparently they wait for the consignment to be full before sending it, hence 2 weeks at swampy.

 

I now use DHL for US destinations.Thaipost is too slow and unreliable at best for that route.

Naturally others may have a different experience but thats mine. ????

 

 

 

[DannyS1951]

Thanks Charlie. The pricing is a bit critical so that rules out the couriers. I'm pretty sure the French envelope stayed in Bangkok for two weeks. The timing works at right that way. Looks like the US is just pot luck.

[darrendsd]

I used to sell online and sent numerous packages daily via Thai post for 15 years

 

My experience of different countries pre covid was as follows

 

UK France 7 - 15 days normally, now and again up to 25 days

 

Eastern Europe 20 - 40 days 

 

South America, really do not bother, 3 months or packages just lost

 

Canada, stopped sending there after packages were taking up to 3 months to arrive, this was down to Canada Customs holding them, not just ones sent from Thailand but from numerous countries

 

USA 20 - 40 days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DannyS1951]

Thanks Darren. I had the same experience with Canada when I was selling books overseas. The problem again was a big customs backlog but this month's test with just letters went rather well. I am hoping for all tests to go through in 30 days but I'm getting worried.

[CharlieH]

29 minutes ago, DannyS1951 said:

Thanks Darren. I had the same experience with Canada when I was selling books overseas. The problem again was a big customs backlog but this month's test with just letters went rather well. I am hoping for all tests to go through in 30 days but I'm getting worried.

My experience with Canada in the past few months has been really good with items delivered within 3wekks ! Far better than previously as described above and I had just about given up until the apparent turn around.

[DannyS1951]

Standard airmail to the US does seem to be a problem. Are there any scheduled flights to the US still flying? I guess mail backlogs in any of the countries mail gets transferred through could be the problem.

[DannyS1951]

The first of my airmail test envelopes to the US arrived in exactly 30 days. If the other two which were sent a week later arrive this weekend then it's repeatable.

[DannyS1951]

Just in case it is of interest to anyone else, here are the results of my very small test. I sent 7 minimum weight rate standard airmail envelopes with no registration and tracking. 4 were sent on the 4th. November and another 3 on the 11th. November. The results were as follows:

 

To the UK sent 4th. November arrived in 8 days

To Canada sent 11th. November arrived in 12 days

To Canada sent 4th. November arrived in  15 days

To France sent 4th. November arrived in 19 days

To the US sent 4th. November arrived in 30 days

To the US 11th. November arrived in 40 days

To the US 11th. November arrived in 40 days

 

I'm not sure what to make of this yet. It's obvious that US airmail is problematic. If you are engaging in ecommerce of low price items it could be worth warning US based customers that long delays should be expected.

 

It should also be noted that the two lower weight airmail rates to the US are not supported so the starting rate is at third rate of over 40 grams.