Intra-Alaska Bush Service Mail Rates

Order 04-07-11
OST-03-14694 - Intra-Alaska Bush Service Mail Rates

Issued and Served July 15, 2004

Order Setting Final Rate Until Further Department Action and Requesting Comments

By this order, the Department is setting the terminal portion of the mail rates payable by the United States Postal Service to intra-Alaska bush mail carriers providing service with bush aircraft. This rate will be effective immediately on a final basis, not subject to retroactive adjustment, and will remain in effect until further Department action. The current linehaul elements of intra-Alaska bush mail rates -- Part 121, Part 135, and Amphibious -- remain unchanged. The terminal rate we are setting here of $516.18 per mail ton enplaned is significantly less than the prior rate of $722.80 set by Order 2002-8-7.

We continue to endorse the multivariable regression approach for determining mail's terminal rate. As shown in Appendix A, the regression estimates a cost for each 200 pounds of mail of $38.1647, or $381.165 per ton enplaned. Because we excluded the data for 40‑Mile and LAB as unreliable in Order 2004‑6‑4, we have also excluded their data here. We have also excluded Tatonduk from the calculations of the terminal rate because its reports do not breakout terminal costs.

By: Karan Bhatia