Crisis at Royal Mail: widows no longer have anyone to write them condolence letters

LondonSometimes, throwing a letter into a mailbox can be like throwing it into a black hole. A few days ago, Jason Bevan, an eighty-year-old retiree living in the small town of Lidney, almost 200 kilometers west of London, lamented in the letters to the editor section of the Daily Telegraph about the unreliability of Royal Mail, the iconic British postal service. His wife, to whom he had been married for fifty-eight years, died in January and the man explained: "I received many condolence cards and expected more after an announcement in the local press. However, I didn't receive any mail all week."

Puzzled, he mentioned it to the local postman. And a few days later, he delivered 13 more condolence cards that, with second-class stamps, had remained at the local depot waiting to be delivered. "We can no longer rely on Royal Mail to do its job," Bevan concluded his complaint.

It is not an isolated case. The reason for the accumulation and delay in delivery is, according to service workers, increasingly common: second-class mail is held until there is a sufficient quantity of first-class letters to justify delivery from the large regional distribution centers to local county offices. A first-class stamp for an ordinary letter costs £1.80 (€2.07); a second-class stamp, 91 pence (€1.04).

The owner of Royal Mail, Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky –owner of 50% of Caprabo, among many other businesses–, said last week, before the Parliamentary committee that has addressed the service crisis, that "if you want to send a letter [with a first-class stamp] from Brighton to the Scottish Highlands, it must be delivered the next day for £1.80. And it's not an easy job." The distance is approximately one thousand kilometers.

Rosary of criticisms

A similar service in Italy costs 5.60 euros. And in Spain, between 7 and 15, if you want to guarantee it arrives at its destination in 24 hours. Despite everything, Kretinsky defended the work of Royal Mail. But he does not find it easy to increase the price of the service due to the purchase conditions and the government's regulation on mail. Second class is regulated. And, even so, it has increased by 74% since 2013, the moment of privatization. The price of first-class stamps –unregulated– has increased by 183% since then, well above an accumulated inflation of 40%.

The fact is that since the beginning of the year, the press on the islands has been full of stories like Jason Bevan's. And there is a common narrative that this same correspondent has experienced as recently as last week. For days and days, there is no mail. And, suddenly, seven or eight letters arrive all at once.

David Pearson, a seventy-year-old retired businessman from Haworth, West Yorkshire –home of the Bronte sisters–, explained to the Daily Mail at the end of February that he lost the first delivery of a traffic fine. Months later, what did arrive was the notice of legal action and bank account seizure for not having paid within the legal deadline. He had to remedy it urgently.

During the days leading up to Christmas, the crisis at Royal Mail had a special impact in Derry, Northern Ireland. Christmas greeting cards and, more seriously, hospital appointments experienced serious delays. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) reported on January 7 that 40 temporary employees of the company were transferred from England to help eliminate the backlog at the local depot. But they did not succeed due to a problem, denounced the union, "of years of lack of investment and facilities unable to manage large volumes of packages". Derry was the tip of the iceberg. In total, across the country, sixteen million letters arrived too late.

From Birmingham to Newcastle

And last Friday, The Sun published a list of the thirty postal districts where the crisis has had the biggest impact, which are in cities like Birmingham or Newcastle. The list, which spans the four nationsof the United Kingdom, was not an invention of the unions. It was the admission of the company itself, which, in a statement, attributed the delays to causes such as "high levels of sickness absence, lack of resources or other local factors," like bad weather.

Between April 2025 and January 2026, the first eight months since Kretinsky acquired full control of Royal Mail, only 74.9% of first-class mail was delivered on time, when the service's target was to reach 93%. This was the reason for his appearance in Parliament. And also that the body that oversees the reliability of postal delivery fined the company 21 million pounds.

Their calculations suggest that the difference between targets and reality equates to approximately 126 million first-class letters that arrived late last year. And if nothing is done, and with almost 10% of second-class letters also affected by delays, between 219 and 220 million letters will arrive late or very late this year.

Kretinsky had to admit to MPs that Royal Mail "is not meeting its promises." Despite this, he denied "any deterioration of the service" and also the accusation that the company prioritizes the delivery of packages, which are more profitable, over letters.

Royal Mail, privatized in 2013 with its stock market flotation, is running at a loss (348 million in 2023-24, the last fiscal year for which data is available) and sees the volume of letters plummet. From 20 billion in 2004-05 to 6.6 billion in 2025 and a predicted 5.6 billion for this year. Packages are growing to 3.9 billion, but this has not yet translated into profitability. All this in a context of growing competition from FedEx, DHL, Evri, DPD or Amazon, which has caused the package market share to fall from 45% (2014-15) to 35% (2023-24).

On the horizon of Royal Mail, labor changes and a reduction in staff are looming, despite the temporary limitations resulting from the total control of Křetínský's EP Group. In all likelihood, the letter business will continue to decline and may eventually become residual. A service founded in 1516 by Henry VIII, then for the exclusive use of the court, and which opened to the general public in 1635, is experiencing an uncertain moment of change in its business model.