Surface Air Lifted (SAL) is a

postal service The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal syst ...

used to send international mail items. Thirty-nine

postal authorities This is a list of postal entities by country. It includes: *The governmental authority responsible for postal matters. *The Regulatory agency, regulatory authority for the postal sector. Postal regulation may include the establishment of postal po ...

provide this service. It is a cost-effective international mail. At first SAL mail is processed and transported by

surface A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is t ...

in the origin country. Then it is transported by

air The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

to the destination country and finally processed and delivered as standard-type mail by the destination postal administration. The service is faster than

surface mail Surface mail, also known as sea mail, is mail that is transported by land and sea (along the ''surface'' of the earth), rather than by air, as in airmail. Surface mail is significantly less expensive but slower than airmail, and thus is preferred ...

while the cost is lower than

air mail Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be the ...

. SAL is more economical for sending heavy items; with light items, it sometimes costs more than

History

Prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

a number of European countries adopted the practice of forwarding letters to distant destinations at no extra cost to the sender (such as British mail sent to most parts of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

). The consistently high costs of air mail curtailed this trend after the war. During the mid-1960s in response to the continuing increase of

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

capacity, the

UPU Upu or Apu, also rendered as Aba/Apa/Apina/Ubi/Upi, was the region surrounding Damascus of the 1350 BC Amarna letters. Damascus was named ''Dimašqu'' / ''Dimasqu'' / etc. (for example, "Dimaški"-(see: Niya (kingdom)), in the letter correspon ...

adopted the policy of maximizing air conveyance of mail and in the mid-1970s the concept of “surface air lifted” mail was developed in conjunction with the

International Air Transport Association The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...

(IATA). This arrangement allows some

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

to receive, for little or no surcharge, speedier transmission than by surface but without the priority of fully surcharged mail.

References

{{Postal system Postal systems Philatelic terminology

History

See also

References