Just before the last flight to Stuttgart took off, other mail flights went in the direction of Hanover, Munich and – again – Stuttgart. Six planes with one type of cargo: letters. Although there is a total of 1.5 million shipments with a total weight of 53 tonnes, this only accounts for 3 percent of all the letters Deutsche Post transports around the country every day.
But in the future, this will not happen by plane. The change is both a saving measure and a climate measure. The CO2 footprint of a letter that is transported along the ground is 80 percent lower than one that is flown to another part of the country, according to the postal service.
The flight cut has become possible after the government proposed a reform that eased the requirement for delivery time. Previously, 80 percent of the letters had to be delivered the next working day, while 95 percent had to arrive within two days.
The softening means that those who still receive letters have to wait a little longer before the mail arrives.
The nightly mail flights started in the autumn of 1961. The peak was reached in 1996, when 430 tonnes of mail spread over 45 planes passed over the German night sky every day. As electronic communication has replaced pen and paper, stamps and franking machines, there has gradually been less mail and fewer planes.
