Qatar Airways Cargo transported 56 SkyCell containers with vaccines from one of the largest vaccine manufacturers worldwide on its scheduled freighter and belly-hold cargo flights for its customer, CEVA Logistics. The 54 tonne shipment consisting of pneumococcal and varicella vaccines were flown from Brussels to Mumbai via the carrier’s hub in Doha on two separate flights.

The SkyCell containers were loaded on Qatar Airways aircraft in Brussels and arrived in Doha where they were stored at the carrier’s airside Climate Control Centre for pharmaceuticals, before connecting on the aircraft to Mumbai the following day. During the interim storage in the cold chamber, SkyCell’s hybrid
containers were able to recharge themselves, extending their long independent runtime for another 72 hours after arrival in Mumbai.

In the face of logistical challenges faced globally by the industry, the airline has been supporting global trade by operating its scheduled freighters, special charters and freight only passenger flights, offering businesses with much needed capacity and access to markets during these challenging times.

Mr. Guillaume Halleux, Chief Officer Cargo said, “We are glad to support our customer CEVA and offer the much-required capacity for these vaccine shipments. When transporting climate control products, we ensure the cool chain is unbroken to preserve the efficacy of all medicines and pharmaceutical shipments flown on Qatar Airways Cargo. The COVID-19 crisis has indeed created quite a number of challenges for global trade, however air cargo is a resilient industry and we continue to operate our cargo flights, supporting customers to transport their cargo around the world.”

Chiara Venuti, Business Development Director of SkyCell further added, “The COVID-19 crisis leaves no room for error and direct product release without temperature deviation is key. We are therefore proud to have contributed with our container solutions to the safe and timely delivery of these critical vaccines to patients in need.

Twan Reijers, Vice President Freight Management Benelux from CEVA Logistics said, “‘With the help of Qatar Airways Cargo, we were able to assist Global Biopharma company to move a large quantity of vaccines in the compliant and controlled environment of Skycell. Proud that our freight forwarding network arranged the set up for shipping these volumes during COVID-19 lockdown with zero tolerance towards temperature excursions into India, which is still very much impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

QR Pharma, the cargo airline’s specialist product developed for pharmaceuticals and healthcare products, offers active solutions to maintain a consistent temperature throughout the transportation chain, as well as
passive solutions, which keep the pharmaceuticals within a defined temperature band during all stages of the journey.

The innovative Climate Control Centre situated at the airside at Hamad International Airport is equipped with segregated temperature-controlled sections for storing pharmaceuticals transiting the hub. It has two zones operating for 2°C to 8°C or 15°C to 25°C, with a capacity to hold a total of 156 unit loading devices (ULDs) at a time, in addition to the 64 temperature-controlled cells at the cargo terminal’s cold room. The cargo carrier utilises refrigerated vehicles at its hub for all temperature-sensitive cargo, ensuring perfect temperature control.

Currently, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Qatar Airways Cargo continues to operate a significant cargo schedule with approximately 175 flights per day. During the past month the cargo operator has worked closely with governments and NGOs to transport over 100,000 tonnes of medical and aid supplies to impacted regions around the world on both scheduled and charter services, the equivalent of roughly 1,000 fully loaded Boeing 777 freighters. Freight charters are being operated to multiple countries including China,
India, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.

ICAO is encouraging the establishment of special COVID-19-free Public Health Corridors (PHCs) to address the “extensive and varied” country-to-country border restrictions now in place due to national pandemic measures.

In an attachment and appendix to its latest bulletin, issued under the authority of ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu, the UN aviation agency underscored to national governments that current disruptions to international air movements have “severely disrupted the global aviation network, including the transport of essential items such as medical supplies and food.”

To keep supply lines open, and access to needed supplies better assured, the ICAO Collaborative Arrangement for the Prevention and Management of Public Health Events in Civil Aviation (CAPSCA) has recommended that PHCs be established where COVID-19-free or ‘clean’ crew,  aircraft, airport facilities, and passengers can continue to undertake their urgently-needed work.

Guidance relating specifically to flight crew conducting essential cargo operations is appended to the new ICAO bulletin.

Further PHC provisions in aid of humanitarian, repatriation, and scheduled passenger operations will be developed within the scope of ICAO’s Council Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART), in collaboration with aviation industry and public health authorities.

The ICAO PHC concept is COVID-19 specific and has been developed using a risk-based approach, taking relevant safety management principles and all relevant World Health Organization (WHO) and aviation sector pandemic guidance into account. The PHC will be regularly reviewed and updated based on the latest COVID-19 data available, and was introduced by ICAO in a recent webinar it presented.

Given the lack of a vaccine and definitive treatment for COVID-19, and persisting limitations on testing and resources, the ICAO bulletin notes that while the risk of contracting COVID-19 during air travel cannot yet be completely eliminated, the risk to crew and passengers can be significantly mitigated by PHC measures.

Emirates SkyCargo has expanded its weekly scheduled cargo flight operations to cover 75 destinations across six continents. Through its wider reach, Emirates SkyCargo is able to transport essential commodities and other urgently needed cargo more rapidly across the world, allowing exporters and importers across markets to benefit from direct access to widebody cargo capacity.

Some of the destinations recently included in Emirates SkyCargo’s network include Colombo, Conakry, Dakar, Dhaka, Dublin, Khartoum, Kuala Lumpur, Perth and Quito.

In addition, Emirates SkyCargo has also upped frequency of flights to several key destinations such as Amsterdam, Beijing, Bengaluru, Brussels, Chennai, Chicago, Frankfurt, Hanoi, Johannesburg and London allowing businesses more choice and flexibility in having their cargo shipped to customers and supplementing additional cargo capacity for the transport of urgent and necessary goods.

Over and above scheduled flight operations, Emirates SkyCargo also operates charter flights in response to customer demand.

Since March 2020, Emirates SkyCargo has played an important role globally in the transport of urgently required medical supplies including personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves, pharmaceuticals, healthcare equipment, electronics such as laptops and mobile phones as more people around the world have turned to online working and learning, food items including fruits, vegetables, sea food and meat. The carrier operated over 2,500 flights in the month of April. Currently Emirates SkyCargo is operating more than 100 flights a day from its hub in Dubai.