Austrian Post AG

In 1624, the Paar family was granted the postal rights in most hereditary lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This lasted 'only' until 1722, when Charles VI declared the postal service to be a state monopoly.

We owe the first “modernday” postmarks to the royal and imperial post officer Johann Georg Khumer of Friesach, who introduced them in 1787.

The Austrian tax officer Laurenz Koschier had submitted a concept for the introduction of stamps back in 1836, but he was ahead of his time.

The first Austrian stamps were produced in 1850, making Austria the respectable 15th country in the world to introduce 'adhesive letter levy stamps'.

It wasn’t until 1 August 1850 that the first "royal and imperial post office on rails" started operating on the route that connected Vienna to Oderberg.

an international Postal Conference was convened and took place in Paris from 11 May to 8 June 1863.

The first post-mark that provided exact information about time and location on the letters was introduced in 1867.

In 1869, Emanuel Herrmann, an economics professor in Klagenfurt, had a far-reaching idea. He proposed an unprecedented option of sending mail: simple 'postcards', no bigger than an envelope that one could send 'open through the postal service'. This idea was enthusiastically received and in the same year, the first 'correspondence cards' were produced in Austria.

The 'Universal Postal Union' was founded in 1874, which created a uniform postal area that covered all participating countries.

the pneumatic tube mail facility started operating in Vienna in 1875 and was used to move telegrams.

In 1883, the Postal Savings Bank was established, which continues being an important partner for Österreichische Post to this day.

In 1885, private persons were granted the right to produce such cards.

In 1907, the first steps towards car-based postal service were taken.

Initially, only ten postal offices were connected to each other, but in 1913, the network had grown to 53 locations on a total length of 82.5 kilometres.

In 1914, approximately 700 train cars were used for shipping mail.

The first airmail service, created in 1915, carried combat orders and messages relevant for war.

The first civil airmail service started operating between Vienna and Lviv in 1918.

Service was first limited to Europe and extended to overseas destinations in 1928.

the service was discontinued in 1956.

In 1986, a special service called EMS (Express Mail Service) was introduced for priority shipping.