Air mail shipping = sea mail times?

[love_of_cars]

I've been sending a bunch of parcels each week to North America and other countries for many years, and every week since January I've been getting worried buyers wondering what is going on with the delays in delivery.

Australia Post quotes 6 business days to the US, but they are taking about 3 and a half to 4 weeks to get there.  Weeks are being added onto the real delivery times and it's causing a lot of problems.  There must be heaps of sellers facing chargebacks for items not received.

[lyndal1838]

I am not a seller so cannot comment on ebay times quoted but from over 40 years of sending and receiving parcels from the USA and Canada I do know that 4-6 weeks is quite normal even for airmail.

Customs clearances in both countries are v-e-r-y slow.  Even a birthday card to Canada can take 6 weeks, airmail.

[kopenhagen5]

I regularly get 2 weeks to and fro with USA but 4-5 weeks is not uncommon with Canada.

I had one to Canada that took 7 weeks.

[imastawka]

I don't know about the delivery times now, but this has been the worst winter in North America for two decades.

Polar blasts - people were even advised not to leave their homes even to check their mail boxes.

The Postal Service in some States cancelled deliveries.

But the delivery times should be back to 'normal' by now

[purplemon18]

Yup, I've been having slow delivery issues to the USA too. Stawka has pegged it, I use DHL, and they have quite a few advisories warning of delivery delays due to weather.