2/12/16 Need a passport? If you’re going to a post office to submit an application, get there early in the day – or you may have to return another time or find a different location.
An increase in demand for passports, coupled with United States Postal Service staffing shortages, have led some post offices, including the one in downtown Colorado Springs, to process paperwork in the mornings, not the afternoons.
“We try to accommodate every walk-in customer for passport applications, but in some situations we don’t always have the required resources,” said Western area spokesman David Rupert.
Signs have popped up saying that a location is unable to process passports at that time. It usually happens when customers needing to mail packages and obtain other postal services overload the system, leaving no window clerk for passport needs.
The processing problem could get worse. The Postal Service is bracing for a 20 percent increase nationwide in applications in the next few years. A decade ago, the State Department started requiring passports for air travel to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Previously, travelers could enter and exit those countries with just a driver’s license or identification card.
Millions of passports issued under that program are expiring soon. That, along with Spring Break vacationers applying for passports, are causing the recent influx, postal officials say.