The financially ailing U.S. Postal Service is about to move into the European parcels business with a British shipping company.
Wednesday, while outgoing Postmaster General William J. Henderson renewed calls for legislation overhauling the USPS before Congress, postal officials were signing a three-year shipping agreement with U.K.-based Lynx Express.
The agreement, announced by David Burtenshaw, chief executive of the Nuneaton, England, firm, expands the USPS's international package service, which, until now, has focused primarily on Latin America and the Far East.
Earlier in the year officials of the USPS formalized their first major domestic shipping agreement with officials of Memphis, TN-based FedEx Corp. for the cross shipping and delivery of parcels.
Initially the new service, which will be called, The Simplest Way To The USA, will provide European based catalog, direct marketing and other companies a way of directly shipping parcels weighing up to 70 pounds to America for local delivery by postal service personnel.
Later in the year the service will be expanded to cover direct shipments to a Lynx facility in England for distribution throughout the U.K. and Europe either through its own distribution network or its alliances with other express carriers.
The agreement also calls for Lynx to promote and sell a variety of USPS products at its various European facilities.
Lynx and the USPS officials declined to discuss terms of the agreement.
