After more than 62 years, Deutsche Post has stopped sending letters by air within Germany. On Thursday evening, shortly after midnight, the last plane took off from Berlin bound for Stuttgart. Shortly before, other planes had taken off from Hannover, Munich and Stuttgart. A total of around 1.5 million letters weighing 53 tons were on board the six machines. This corresponds to approximately three percent of the volume of letters that the post office in Germany transported daily until recently.

In the future, the postal service will abandon air transport of letters to reduce costs and have a better climate footprint. According to the company, CO2 emissions per letter are reduced by more than 80 percent on land.

“We are ending the era of night postal flights with laughing and teary eyes,” said responsible postal director Marc Hitschfeld. “On the one hand, the transport of letters by plane within Germany can no longer be justified in times of climate change, also because there is no longer the same urgency with letters as there was decades ago.” In this sense, the end of German airmail is good news for the environment, says Hitschfeld. Furthermore, a piece of postal history has just come to an end.

Consequence of digitalization

The so-called night airmail network officially came into operation on September 1, 1961, after the then postmaster Richard Stücklen signed a contract with Lufthansa. This should significantly speed up the delivery of letters over long distances. Over the years, air travel expanded.

In 1996, 26 aircraft flew to 45 destinations; At that time Frankfurt still served as an operations center. Letters with an average weight of 430 tons each were transported five nights a week.

After that, the demand for letters fell significantly due to digitalization and changes in people's communication habits. As a result, the number of flights was gradually reduced. Lufthansa left the business in 2008 and until recently there were only four Tui fly aircraft and two Eurowings aircraft.

The novel casts its shadow ahead.

They were normal passenger planes that were filled with yellow mailboxes to carry letters. The containers were placed in the belly of the plane, on the seats and in the space to store hand luggage. Only letters and no packages were loaded. The post office is still legally obliged to deliver 80 percent of sent letters to the recipient the next business day.

Because of this time pressure, they continued to rely on air travel even after the turn of the millennium, even though many people had long turned to email, cell phone messages, and chats instead of letters for quick written communication.

The outdated postal law is currently being thoroughly reformed. Although the amendment has not yet been approved, there is political consensus to relieve time pressure on the postal service. Therefore, the company no longer needs the flights and is already drawing a line in the sand.

patience is a virtue

Some recipients will probably notice the consequences of the end of the night flight: Anyone waiting for letters sent in distant regions of Germany may need a little more patience. The average letter transport time will be slightly longer due to the end of transport flights; Correos does not indicate how much.

However, in the future Correos will not be able to conduct its postal business completely without airplanes: the company will still depend to some extent on airmail for writing abroad. These small quantities are transported as additional cargo in the hold of regular passenger aircraft.

Author: Wolf von Dewitz (dpa)