[Tagging] "Feature Proposal - RFC - (office=courier)"

[Kevin Kenny]

On 04/16/2017 06:01 AM, Paul Johnson wrote:
>
> On Sun, Apr 16, 2017 at 4:54 AM, Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com 
> <mailto:61sundowner at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     My impression is that worldwide the branding of 'Post Office'
>     implies a government run service with international links to other
>     'Post Offices'.
>     A 'posted' item would be through the 'Post Office' no mater the
>     sending or receiving countries. 
>
>
> That's where it gets messy again, since Federal Express was previously 
> an internal government service, and got spun off and privatized, yet 
> still handles the USPS's international services, evidently in a way 
> that parallels the DHL situation.

Where on Earth did you get that?  Federal Express was founded as a 
private corporation in 1971 by a gentleman by the name of Fred Smith. It 
is and has always been privately owned.

US Postal Service has outsourced its air carriage since the passage of 
the Contract Air Mail Act of 1925. FedEx does indeed hold an exclusive 
contract for international overnight express service at the moment (it's 
up for negotiation again in five years). Domestically, United, UPS, 
Eagle Express, Kalitta Air, Delta and American are the largest mail 
carriers.

The Boeing 727 aircraft you used to see with USPS livery were in fact 
contract aircraft, owned and operated by UPS.

FedEx is not and has never been a government agency nor under government 
ownership.

And (speaking as an American), if someone asked me to direct them to a 
post office, unless they were obviously about to send a parcel, I 
wouldn't send them to FedEx or the local copy shop (most of which offer 
shipping services, and some of which also offer a mailbox service).