In late February, Alaska Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, issued a letter to the state’s congressional delegation voicing concerns over active and proposed federal spending cuts. In a list of potentially targeted agencies and programs they included one unique to Alaska: Bypass Mail.
Bypass Mail is an Alaska-only classification of parcel post mail that bypasses U.S. Postal Service facilities. It includes food and other products that are shipped from Anchorage and Fairbanks through private carriers to retailers off of the road system. Bypass Mail must be from a single seller to a single recipient, shrink-wrapped and moved on pallets for ease of storage, and in a minimum order of 1,000 pounds. The USPS subsidizes the service, at an estimated cost of $133 million in 2022.
Alaskans’ concern over Bypass Mail is rooted in recent comments by President Donald Trump, who recently suggested ending the independence of the U.S. Postal Service. On Feb. 21, the Washington Post reported that Trump planned to transfer the USPS to the Department of Commerce. The president added the next day that the Commerce secretary was “going to look at” postal reform. On March 5, presidential adviser Elon Musk announced his support for privatizing the Postal Service, saying, “I think we should privatize the Post Office and Amtrak for example…We should privatize everything we possibly can.”
Calls to privatize the Postal Service have occurred since the 1980s, with rural delivery serving as a primary target. That’s especially true for Alaska, where much of the state relies on air mail delivery. Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly, ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was succinct last month in his estimation of what privatization would mean for the state, telling CNN, “If you privatize the Postal Service, there’s not a piece of mail that could be delivered in Alaska for any kind of reasonable price.”
Those who oppose Bypass Mail, including the national-level Postal Service leaders, have repeatedly argued that it is not a mail service like others provided by the USPS. Instead, it is more similar to a private freight service. A 2011 USPS report referred to it as “a freight service that includes items seemingly considered nonmailable anywhere else in the United States.”
A history of growth and survival
Bypass mail grew organically, out of the inability in the 1970s for Anchorage post offices to process the high volume of parcel post that was shipped to the bush. This mail reached its final destination by air and postal employees at that time began shifting large orders directly to the air carriers in a system they devised on their own.
Rural mail service through the U.S. has been protected against previous cost-cutting attempts by a mandate in the 1970 Postal Reauthorization Act, which was co-sponsored by Alaska U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, created the USPS as the independent agency it is today. It codified into law that the USPS must provide “equitable service to all Americans.”
Bypass Mail has periodically been targeted for criticism. It was the subject of a strongly negative 2011 USPS report, followed by a 2014 congressional hearing. Then-Congressman Don Young testified at the time to the often unspoken and unsolvable part of the Alaska mail problem: lack of roads. “Now, you build me some highways, Mr. Chairman,” he challenged California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, “and I will go along with you.” The hearing resulted in no changes to the Bypass Mail system.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy suggested eliminating Bypass entirely in 2020, but backed down in the face of political opposition.
While those seeking to eliminate Bypass have suggested that without it shippers would promptly turn to freight services, Grant Aviation’s Vice President of Commercial Operations Dan Knesek is mindful of parcel post’s history. He cautions that those seeking to discontinue the program should be aware of how parcel post was previously the overwhelming choice for most Alaskan shippers and what returning to it would entail for the USPS.
“If those [thousands of pounds of] boxes were not shipped via Bypass, every box would be taken individually into the local post office by the shipper, every box would be weighed individually by a postal employee, and every box would then have to be stored in the post office until every box was separately dispatched for delivery. When it arrived in the destination village, the USPS would have to have employees out at that airport to receive every single box and either store them in those post offices or deliver them immediately. Right now,” he concluded, “none of that storage and none of that handling is done by postal employees. It is almost entirely done by the aviation industry in Alaska. If the post office was to remove Bypass then it would need to invest in warehouses, hangars, trucks, forklifts, staff and everything else to do what the carriers are doing, and have done, in Alaska for decades.”
Under the current system, USPS’s only responsibility for Bypass Mail is to cover some of its costs. Once received by a carrier, the shipments are always under their control. The USPS thus is freed from responsibility for storage, loading, unloading, and delivery.
Last year, according to Knesek, Grant Aviation moved 17 million pounds of U.S. mail as a Bush air carrier, with the majority of it Bypass Mail. Bush carriers serve small villages, mainline carriers serve hub destinations where the mail is then disseminated to Bush carriers.
Additionally, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which currently has figures through November 2024, reports that Bering Air moved 13.8 million pounds that year, Alaska Central Express moved 11.3 million pounds, Ryan Air moved 11 million pounds and Wright Air Service moved 5.4 million pounds. Several other companies flew figures less than one million pounds and Everts Air Cargo, which flies both mainline and Bush mail, flew just over 25 million pounds.
When asked to comment on privatization and how it would affect Alaska, a USPS spokesperson replied that there was no statement at this time as the “inquiry is centered on action by the administration and cuts that haven’t happened.”
Meanwhile, on March 14, DeJoy released a letter informing Congress that the USPS had entered into an agreement with the General Services Administration and Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The agencies were going to assist USPS in “identifying and achieving further efficiencies.”
• Colleen Mondor is an aviation journalist specializing in Alaska. She is the author of “The Map of My Dead Pilots: The Dangerous Game of Flying in Alaska” and covered aviation for Alaska Dispatch and the Anchorage Daily News. She has been published in various publications and sites, including Aviation International News, Skies Magazine, and Men’s Journal. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
