USPS Amazon PM Delivery Pilot: Afternoon Packages, Same-Day Delivery

Amazon packages arriving around lunchtime could soon become a separate afternoon delivery operation at several postal facilities. For employees, the most consequential detail is the timing: the proposed work reaches the office after the usual morning preparation period, creating a new demand for distribution and delivery coverage later in the day.

The publicly reproduced NALC memo identifies USPS Correspondence 5381, dated September 17, 2026. It describes the Amazon PM Delivery Pilot and says the union will review the correspondence and meet with USPS as needed about its potential effect on the craft. MyPostalPay reviewed that reproduced union memo; it is a summary of the USPS notice, not the complete underlying pilot instructions.

How the afternoon operation would work

According to the memo, Amazon would drop packages between noon and 1 p.m. local time. Clerks would sort them manually, making them available for city-carrier delivery between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. that same day.

Those are the stated operating windows. They do not establish that every assigned carrier will work until 8 p.m., that a carrier must return from a regular route at a particular time, or that every package will require overtime. The memo does not provide individual work schedules.

Where the pilot is scheduled

The memo gives no anticipated end date. These are planned starts as of this article's publication, not a statement that operations are already underway.

What clerks and carriers should watch

MyPostalPay analysis: A midday drop changes when staffing is needed. An office would need enough clerk coverage to receive and distribute the parcels, enough delivery capacity after sorting, and a workable handoff between the two operations. If one stage runs late, the other has less time available. Package totals alone cannot tell us whether the schedule will work.

Useful measures would include arrival time, distribution completion, loading time, actual delivery hours, completion time and any effect on the regular operation. A parcel count without those details gives employees and the public an incomplete picture of the test's cost and performance.

For an employee assigned this work, the immediate questions are practical: What is my reporting time? Which operation am I assigned to? Who provides instructions if the drop is late? How should the work and any additional hours be recorded? The pilot summary does not answer those questions or settle a particular contractual dispute.

What has not been established

The memo names city carriers. It does not announce rural-carrier participation, new permanent jobs, revised wage rates, a national staffing formula or a nationwide expansion. It also does not publish Amazon's price for the service or USPS's expected profit. Those gaps matter before anyone describes the pilot as either a financial breakthrough or a guaranteed increase in overtime.

This is a separate operational development from the Amazon delivery agreement covered earlier this year. The next useful update will be documented results or additional written instructions from the participating facilities and national parties.