China and the post of Ukraine - why so long?

Over the past couple of months, I noticed that shipments from China to Ukraine began to go for a very long time. Previously, it took a couple of weeks, sometimes a little longer, if something is cheap in a regular envelope. But everything that is more expensive than 50 bucks came to me in 14-18 days. What happened? The answer is under the cut.



There were two reasons for the long mail delays. The first is a ban on the shipment of lithium batteries, recently accepted by Hong Kong Post. And after that, according to rumors, such packages began to be wrapped at customs and they were no longer accepted by China post. A bunch of parcels returned to the sellers, which for some time disrupted the normal operation of both the warehouses of shops and the post offices of China. Now lithium batteries are sent by Singapore post.



But there is a second reason. Until March 2013, mail from China was sent by direct flight Beijing - Kiev, operated by Aerosvit. After the bankruptcy of the company, this flight was no more. Therefore, mail is now going in very interesting ways. For example, this is how a track with intmail.183.com.cn/itemtrace_cn.jsp looks like:



RB788 * CN 2013 20 局 收寄 深圳 市 国际 宗 宗 宗 宗 宗 10 10 10 20131020 1434

RB788 * CN 2013 出口 总 包 互 封 开 拆 拆 深圳 乌克兰 10 20131020 1824

RB788 * CN 2013 21 总 出口 直 封 封 发 发 深圳 国际 10 20131021 0718

RB788 * CN 2013 收到 PVG 20131024 0000

RB788 * CN 2013 航 PVG 20131025 0957

RB788 * CN 2013 预订 PVG 20131027 0000

RB788 * CN 2013 启运 PVG 20131027 0000

RB788 * CN 2013 启运 FRA 乌克兰 20131027 0000

RB788 * CN 2013 交付 交付 MXP 20131028 0000

RB788 * CN 2013 运输 路程 结束 BUD 乌克兰 20131028 0000

RB788 * CN 2013 已 预订 FRA 乌克兰 20131028 0000

RB788 * CN 2013 运输 路程 结束 OTP 20131028 0000

RB788 * CN 2013 已 交付 VIE 乌克兰 20131028 0000

')

Here you can see that the package was on the route Pudun - Frankfurt - Milan - Budapest - again Frankfurt - Bucharest - Vienna - Kiev (already from the track Ukrpochta)