Recently, several international pharmaceutical companies have announced big breakthroughs within their research to develop highly efficient vaccines against COVID-19. To make sure distribution is as fast and efficient as possible from day one, the vaccines should be packed in a way that allows them to be transported under “normal air freight conditions”. This means within a temperature range of -18 to 25° Celsius, under the GDP and CEIV industry standards and at a regular priority service level. If packed correctly in specially designed boxes, the vaccines could in fact be transported at very low temperatures such as -70°C. However, this would need to be done with a lot of dry ice (UN1845) and in relatively small quantities per shipment due to operational restrictions. Transport temperature requirements at -18°C to 25°C will be possible in larger quantities using temperature-controlled containers.

Operational partners in CPH have been preparing to handle big volumes of pharma for years

With hundreds of pharmaceutical companies relying on fast and efficient air cargo service to and from Copenhagen, operational partners of CPH such as Spirit and WFS have been ramping up their pharma services for years. With plenty of capacity for temperature sensitive shipments in the range of -18 to 25°C, Spirit har just been recertified according to the IATA CEIV Pharma standard. “Based on strict procedures when handling pharma, Spirit has, in cooperation with freight forwarders and airlines, created an efficient and reliable process for pharma,” says Trine Munkemose, Senior Manager at Spirit.

The same goes for WFS – having recently been certified according to the GDP standard, WFS CPH has now become one of twelve dedicated WFS pharma facilities. “In September 2019, WFS inaugurated a new dedicated 1,565m2 pharma facility with the ability to handle up to 300 euro-pallets at the same time. Additionally, WFS has launched Project Coldstream to coordinate its global response to support airlines, forwarders and logistics providers in the fast and efficient distribution of the vaccine once released,” says Thomas Egeland, General Manager at WFS. See a previous article about the WFS Pharma facility here.

Attractive infrastructure and prime geographical location in Scandinavia

While the ground handling agents especially in CPH are offering state-of-the-art facilities with highly trained and experienced staff, CPH represents an attractive airport infrastructure with no curfews, short cargo transfer times and direct access to the E20 highway connecting CPH to more than 900 cities overnight. On top of this, CPH offers competitive operating costs (takeoff charge and emission charge) and rebate programmes equaling a single operation at approximately DKK 11,750 + DKK 15 per kg. NOx / USD 1,870 + USD 2.38 per kg. NOx for aircraft above 200 tons MTOW.

For ad-hoc cargo operations, please reach out to the professional partners of CPH via this link.