‘Sudden arrival of 1,000 postal sacks’

AROUND 1,000 postal sacks have arrived to Larnaca from the UK carrying letters and parcels sent in December and should be delivered to people by tomorrow, the head of postal services Andreas Gregoriou said yesterday. 

The sacks contain letters and parcels sent between December 6 and December 20 and the postal service is “getting organised so we can adequately respond to the accumulated bulk,” Gregoriou said. 

“It seems that there are some other sacks,” he said responding to a question on whether there was any more mail waiting to be delivered. On Tuesday the Postal Services said the delays – which left hundreds of people waiting for parcels and letters this Christmas – was the fault of Britain’s Royal Mail and of their Greek counterparts. A lot of mail had been sent on indirect flights they said.

However, the Royal Mail said yesterday that they had been dispatching mail normally, and also taking into account the possibility that mail would not necessarily be sent with direct flights when they were setting end dates for timely delivery.

 “Items of mail posted to Cyprus before the latest recommended posting date of December 12 were dispatched as scheduled from the UK,” Royal Mail spokesman Nick Martens told the Cyprus Mail. 

Gregoriou yesterday categorically denied that there were any delays at the sorting offices at Larnaca and Latsia. 

“This does not correspond to reality,” he said responding to claims by Cyprus Mail readers that they were told mail was stuck in Larnaca. 

Gregoriou said that they moved “hundreds of thousands of letters or items each day” and so in “very isolated incidents” there could be some delays.  

He said that they had reorganised their workforce to respond to the increased bulk and had taken various actions including communicating with the Royal Mail but “unfortunately there were no immediate results”. 

Gregoriou said that due to increased traffic in airports, passengers and other cargo were given priority over parcels and letters resulting in delays.   “The problem will be resolved within the next days,” he said. 

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.