Mail’s two-year journey to Canada finally over

| 12/04/2022 | 37 Comments
Cayman News Service
George Town Post Office

(CNS): The inability of the Cayman Islands Postal Service to find an airline to transport mail to Canada for two years came to an end last month when recipients began receiving piles of mail, some of which was sent more than 24 months ago. One former Cayman resident who now lives back in his native Canada told CNS that last week he received 14 letters from his bank in Cayman all on the same day, including replacement credit cards, regulatory filing notices and other critical mail.

He was just one of many people who contacted CNS to say they had just received piles of mail from Cayman, including a postcard sent from Hell, just days before the lockdown, as well as Christmas cards from 2020 and 2021.

Officials from the post office explained that with only Cayman Airways and British Airways flying to and from Cayman between March 2020 and March 2022, they were unable to find a forwarding service to Canada. 

While they were able to reestablish routes in 2020 for Europe, the UK and the USA and regularized the service quickly after the initial lockdown, they were never able to find a way to forward the mail destined for Canada and the Eastern Caribbean.

“Every option we tried fell through,” a CIPS spokesperson told CNS. “For most of the last two years, Canada Post has been routing mail to Cayman via Europe. The CIPS tried doing the same and was advised we could not use that route. Customers seeking to post items to Canada at our counters were advised that there was no service and the items were not accepted, but some senders still dropped the mail off.”

The post office held the mail in the expectation that they would find a way, as throughout the entire time it was actively, though unsuccessfully, looking for a route to Canada. The official explained that mail is not the same as regular cargo.

“One factor that the general public may not know is that air transport of mail is not like air freight or cargo. Mail moves internationally under different conditions and sending it as cargo is challenging at best and to some destinations not even possible,” the post office stated. “Ultimately, it wasn’t until 23 March that we had confirmation of an airmail route to Canada and all mail being held was dispatched as soon as we could get it on the flights.”


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Category: Government Administration, Local News

Comments (37)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Mail??? Who uses that anyway?

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  2. Anonymous says:

    Yep. Got 40 pieces of mail delivered to my home (Vancouver) last Friday. SMH …

  3. Anonymous says:

    I gather the part for the long broken weather radar is coming from somewhere like this.

  4. Ah says:

    UPDATE: Two years of delayed Canada mail arrived in Cayman last week!

    • Anonymous says:

      The inbound problem was resolved after a few months hiatus – maybe a year ago? We received a big oil of xmas cards in April. This is has been an outbound problem from Cayman where CIPS didn’t bother to employ a work-around for 2 years. Project leader should be called into the board room and fired.

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  5. Soon Come says:

    Even with regular BA flights delivering mail from the UK to the Cayman Islands in a matter of days, our brilliant Postal Service frequently takes a year and sometimes longer, to advise that you have packages and parcels waiting for collection. The Covid excuse is wearing really thin.

  6. Anonymous says:

    world class….zzzzzzzz
    time for more awards franz……

  7. Anonymous says:

    “World class” civil “service”

    • Anonymous says:

      📦✉️📪📫📭

      Here is what they said in 2016:

      “There are several factors that could contribute to the scenario identified in the question. We’ve not had any reports of priority mail items taking two months to reach Canada. However, we are aware of factors that are causing some delays (about one week) with some mail to Canada. The delays relate to our current routing for mail to Canada [‼️all the same, all the same], but we are working on a solution and anticipate this being resolved by August. [2016‼️]”

      further, they said:

      “Either way, the CIPS is offering you a way to determine what exactly is causing your postal problems: “If the sender who asked the question is willing, we have a way of ‘tagging’ items with a radio-frequency identifier that may help identify specific issues we are unaware of.”
      If you would like to take up this offer, the CIPS suggests you email customer care or call Deputy Postmaster General Melissa Martinez-Ebanks at 945-6875.”
      https://cnslocallife.com/2016/08/not-happy-postal-service-canada/

      Did anyone take up the offer? Otherwise, this mysterious saga with Canada mail delivery will never end, unless class-action lawsuit is brought up against CIPS.

      ✅By the way in Bermuda mail is delivered to the houses, as everywhere else in the world. Seems only in Cayman they can’t figure out how to do that.

  8. Anonymous says:

    Can residents bring class-action lawsuit against CIPS for failing to provide competent management, loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter? Or it is above the Law?

    Cayman Islands Postal Service does function as a quasi-business, charging for services. It competes with private carriers every day, yet if those competitors slip up, they can expect to face legal consequences. Why isn’t the same true for CIPS? I bet UPS and FedEx refund money if they fail to deliver letters or postal matter timely.

    • Anonymous says:

      Most effective would probably be a criminal complaint to the police for the common law offense of maladministration. Something is seriously wrong.

      • Anonymous says:

        Maladministration in UK public administration was defined by Richard Crossman, the minister responsible for legislating in 1967 for the UK parliamentary ombudsman, as ‘bias, neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, ineptitude, perversity, turpitude, arbitrariness and so on’ leading to perceived injustice. It refers to defective administration rather than defective policy.

        • Maladministration is the actions of a government body which can be seen as causing an injustice. The law in the United Kingdom says Ombudsmen must investigate maladministration.
        Maladministration
        Maladministration is not defined by statute but examples are:
        unreasonable delay
        failure to follow policy or procedure
        failure to provide information
        failure to take into account relevant considerations when making a decision
        allowing irrelevant considerations to influence a decision
        not giving reasons for a decision
        inadequate records
        https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100128214

        • Anonymous says:

          Yup. Every branch of the civil service appears on the hook. Are we going to build a new prison. I am not sure Northward can accommodate the imminent demand.

          • Anonymous says:

            Would that be sweet. You assume we do accountability around here. You assume we have equal and robust law enforcement. You assume we have the rule of law. You assume too much.

          • Anonymous says:

            Can we bring a maladministration complaint against the police?

  9. Anonymous says:

    Isn’t it some sort of breach of a contractual duty? Customers pay a fee to a specific business to perform a specific task. The task was not performed but the money were not refunded. How do they report the money? Unearned revenue? A debt owed to the customer?

    Is there a criminal element? Keeping the money but not delivering the goods, so to speak. No different than Cayman 123 Travel owner did.

    • Anonymous says:

      If U K had regular mail to Canada, why they didnt send the mail to Canada through U K , B A was flying regular to and from Cayman. I guess that was common sense and that’s not common anymore.

      • N says:

        And Cayman Air was also flying to Miami regularly with flights between USA and Canada. The excuse I got was “American Air has the contract to deliver mail to Cayman, so we can’t do anything” and “It’s the senders responsibility to get the mail to it’s destination”. Making excuses seems to be what CIPS is best suited for!

      • Hubert says:

        7:06, That solution is too easy and logical.

  10. Anonymous says:

    I have trouble believing that there was no way to make this connection for two years.

    • Anonymous says:

      Cayman had better mail service during two previous world wars when it was delivered by boat through enemy Uboat occupied waters. CIPS had simple logistical issues to overcome and chose not to work on actionable remedies. Even mail bags by cargo boat to Miami would have been months faster! There’s no excuse.

  11. Anonymous says:

    I am always amazed at the pride of postal services around the world to get mail through no matter how delayed. (Though this delay …)

    • Anonymous says:

      Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds – on the other hand…

  12. Anonymous says:

    The incompetence is mind boggling.

    • nauticalone345 says:

      I agree! CIPS is sure adept at making excuses!

    • Anonymous says:

      It may actually also be criminal. But we don’t do accountability around here.

    • Anonymous says:

      The problem all over are lazy people. Back in the days when We Caymanian men went to work on ships, we could usually get mail anywhere in the world in a week no more than two. That’s was back when people had good working ethics. Now it takes a week to 10 days between Brac and Grand Cayman, its too much eating on the job and getting fat.

      • Anonymous says:

        That’s what happens when government gets too big and the bureaucracy turns into a continually metastasizing virus.

        But hey, they should get bonuses and hazard pay because they kept the mail safe, don’t you think?

  13. Anonymous says:

    https://www.wppawards.com/

    I hear Dubai is lovely this time of year.

  14. Lisa says:

    Got my 2021 Cayman Watercolours calendars last week, mailed in October 2020, sent by post to Canada because they felt courier was too expensive. Ah, well, the pictures are still pretty even if the calendars aren’t of any use.

  15. Anonymous says:

    They could have put in a fedex every week. Just sayin.

  16. anon says:

    The obvious question is not answered, who is transporting the mail now, presumably Air Canada.

    • Anonymous says:

      Air Canada hasn’t flown here since early January. Slated to return on a Sunday route starting in May.

  17. Anonymous says:

    Thanks for storing it safely.

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