Germany’s 63-year airmail era has come to an end after postal operator Deutsche Post closed its last three domestic air routes. Since April, all letters across the country have been delivered only by truck.
The reasons for this decision include the environment and a drop in demand for fast letter delivery. According to Deutsche Post, the transition to land transport will reduce emissions by 80% compared to airplanes, and with the advent of email and messengers, there is no longer a need to deliver regular letters to the addressee the next day.
Deutsche Post first launched mail delivery by air in Germany in 1961. Airplanes carried out the transportation at night, so the letters reached the addressee the next day.
Almost all transportation was carried out by Lufthansa at that time. The only exception was letters to Berlin, which were carried by planes of the American airline PanAm, since German airlines were banned from the city after World War II.
In 2005, Lufthansa’s main hub airport in Frankfurt stopped being used for mail handling due to a ban on night flights, and in 2008, Lufthansa stopped delivering airmail in Germany.
The development of the Internet has significantly changed the demand for fast delivery of letters across the country. In 1996, Deutsche Post delivered 430 tons of mail to 26 German cities every night by air on 26 airlines.
By the end of the airmail era in Germany in March 2024, there were only three routes left – Stuttgart-Berlin, Hanover-Munich, and Hanover-Stuttgart. These lines were serviced by six planes that carried 53 tons of mail per night, equivalent to 1.5 million letters.
