Pharma flights before the vaccine
Better safe than sorry! 246 airfreight containers with their refrigeration units active flew from Italy to the USA between October and December of last year. Qatar Airways Cargo and DHL Global Forwarding used containers leased from Dokasch as well as Envirotainer.
If there were any upsides to 2020, then one of them at least was the general public’s realisation that for some goods it makes no sense to transport them by anything but by air. This is especially true for pharmaceutical shipments, where speed and reliability can mean the difference between life and death. Of course this was already true long before the supply chain for vaccines against Covid-19 was woven.
Two types of reefer units in action
Qatar Airways Cargo cooperated with DHL Global Forwarding to fly a total of no less than 246 airfreight containers from Milan to Chicago in the last three months of last year. From the metropolis in the state of Illinois (USA) the insulin consignments covered the 330 km to Indianapolis in refrigerated trucks. Envirotainer and Dokasch containers with their cooling units active were deployed for the task.
Guillaume Halleux, Qatar Airways’ chief cargo officer, said how pleased his airline is "to support DHL Global Forwarding to move this large quantity of injectable prescription medicines," simultaneously pointing out how complex the pharmaceutical operation was. He added that the Doha-based airline’s ‘QR Pharma’ solution was designed especially to seamlessly transport all types of pharmaceutical and healthcare products.
An additional round trip
"The task we carried out with Qatar Airways Cargo represents the addition of further value to our comprehensive portfolio of transport solutions," is how Christian Giacomin, who is the head of airfreight product capacity management and of pricing at DHL Global Forwarding (Italy), characterised the cooperative effort.
Qatar Airways Cargo provides further support to its customer and people in need of medicines through the addition of another weekly frequency between Milan MXP and Chicago ORD, so that its Boeing B777 freighters now shuttle between northern Italy and the Midwest three times a week.
On top of this Qatar Airways Cargo has invested in every one of its 77 pharmaceuticals stations over the past year, to guarantee quality handling, infrastructure, facilities, personnel and smooth operations.
A third service provider on board too
The carrier has also expanded its range of specialised containers for pharmaceuticals transportation by adding SkyCell hybrid containers to its fleet. In December, the Swiss firm launched its new ‘1500DF’ frozen container. It uses 100 kg of dry ice to transport medical products at temperatures between –60 and –80°C for 120 hours (see also ITJ Daily of 28 January 2021).
Qatar Airways Cargo and Qatar Aviation Services Cargo, which is the airline’s ground-handling partner at its Doha hub, were both recently certified in accordance with Iata CEIV Pharma, thus further proving the Qatari company’s commitment to the high-quality handling of pharmaceutical goods.
The carrier’s ongoing investment in cold-chain solutions is a part of its overall strategy of continuously enhan- cing its logistics services, as well as of gearing up for the global distribution of Covid-19 vaccinations.
