WASHINGTON — The Postal Service’s new Limited Overland Routes (LOR) pricing category for customers in Alaska, who were disproportionately impacted by the recent Standard Postclassification and price changes, becomes effective Sunday, March 23.

“Limited Overland Routes re-establishes the same prices those customers enjoyed prior to the January 2014 price changes,” said the Postal Service’s Alaska District Manager Ron Haberman. “We are pleased the Postal Regulatory Commission responded favorably to our request for the price roll back, which will enable Alaskans to access goods at reasonable prices from a trusted shipper like the U.S. Postal Service.”

Only Standard Post items shipped within Alaska may be entitled to LOR pricing. Items must be shipped:

• From any ZIP Code within Alaska to a ZIP Code on the LOR ZIP Code list; or
• From a ZIP Code on the LOR ZIP Code list to any ZIP Code within Alaska.

For Zones 1 through 5, there is a new LOR price category under the Standard Post product. As of March 23, the prices will be available on Postal Explorer http://pe.usps.com, in the Price List (Notice 123) for manual lookup, and in the Postage Price Calculator http://postcalc.usps.com for automated calculation. Pricing for Zones 6 through 9 remains unchanged.

The LOR price category will follow the same Package Pickup and Pickup on Demand rules the Postal Service has today for Standard Post. Standard Post LOR prices are available for mailings to or from the LOR ZIP code list for:

• Customers who present LOR items for mailing at a Post Office location or Self Service Kiosk; and
• Customers who present metered LOR items to a Postal employee at a Post Office location, Processing Facility, or at any of the following authorized locations:
• Approved shippers.
• CMRAs (Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies).
• Village Post Offices.

LOR pricing is not available for Click-N-Ship for Business, PC Postage, USPS Web Tools, or Commercial Mailers using a Permit Imprint or other type of postage payment method.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

# # #

Please Note:  For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at http://about.usps.com/news/welcome.htm.

For reporters interested in speaking with a regional Postal Service public relations professional, please go to http://about.usps.com/news/media-contacts/usps-local-media-contacts.pdf.

A self-supporting government business, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With nearly 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

Follow the Postal Service on Twitter @USPS and at Facebook.com/usps