A Maine island air service said it will resume mail delivery Wednesday after a one-day halt to bring attention to the nearly $400,000 it says it is owed by the U.S. Postal Service.

“We have to make a small stand, so we won’t be delivering USPS mail today,” Penobscot Island Air said in a social media post Tuesday morning, noting that it hadn’t been paid since mid-March.

By Tuesday night, the “small stand” had its desired effect.

In an update at about 8:45 p.m., Penobscot Island Air said mail delivery would resume on Wednesday and that the USPS will pay about 25% of its $388,000 balance by the end of the week.

“Considering the pace at which USPS generally moves, our contract officer pulled off a small miracle to make it happen,” the company said.

Based out of the Knox County Regional Airport in Owls Head, the air service serves islands in Midcoast Maine through deliveries as well as taxi and scenic flights, according to its website.

Penobscot Island Air thanked the public for its support, along with all four members of Maine’s federal delegation, who are all “working on a congressional inquiry to help us be made whole.”

It also credited news outlets in Maine for amplifying the situation and said it has been navigating the issue “on our own for too long and should have turned to the community sooner.”

“We do believe this is the system working,” the company said Tuesday night.

In its post Tuesday morning announcing the pause in mail delivery, Penobscot Island Air said it had ferried mail on 75 days so far in 2026 and not been paid for any of those deliveries.

Before the company’s update Tuesday night, a regional Postal Service spokesperson said in an email that the agency “does not publicly discuss specifics with our business relationships.” The spokesperson said the Postal Service would be reaching out to the air service’s representatives “to resolve the matter.”

The company said it had already been in regular contact with the Postal Service, to no avail.

“We did our best to resolve this situation by other means, and we do not take this step lightly,” Penobscot Island Air said Tuesday morning. “PIA has spent countless hours in meetings with the USPS financial department and our local counterparts in Rockland. For a period, stopping by or calling daily, begging anyone to fill out the proper paperwork.”

The company said it understood it is crucial that Maine islanders get their mail, and said it had “no intention of dragging this out” and planned to resume deliveries “without payment if we must.” FedEx and UPS deliveries continued as scheduled on Tuesday, it said.

“While our mission is to support the islands, PIA employees need a paycheck,” the air service said. “We can’t operate as a business if almost a fifth of our yearly revenue is tied up in the bureaucracy of the United States government.”

The company says it notified local leaders and island postmasters of the decision on Monday, and that they “have been exceedingly gracious in offering help to escalate our cause.”

By Tuesday night, the air service was hitting an optimistic note.

“Back to work, we have a road ahead of us, but we feel more confident in the outcome,” Penobscot Island Air said in its update.