Category Archives: International

Budapest Airport has introduced the CEIV Pharma pharmaceutical logistics standard in Hungary with the professional guidelines of IATA. The past year has highlighted more strongly than ever that the pharmaceutical healthcare sector relies heavily on the air freight industry. Not only during a pandemic, but in all circumstances, it is important that healthcare shipments reach the consignee as quickly as possible, under strictly regulated conditions, while maintaining their quality. Budapest Airport, led by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), is introducing a quality assurance system covering all phases of pharmaceutical transport in Hungary. Launched in conjunction with shipping, hauling and ground handling companies, the project aims to ensure that healthcare shipments reach their destination quickly and safely under strictly controlled conditions, ensuring quality throughout the delivery process. Partners of Budapest Airport for the CEIV Pharma quality assurance system in Hungary are Agility, Airmax Cargo, cargo-partner, Prevost and airport ground handling companies Celebi and Menzies also joined. In this context, the regulations also cover the development of companies’ facilities, tools and processes and the further training of employees; thus, every step of the drug logistics process can be carried out under controlled conditions. “Over the past year, healthcare shipments, medical aids and medicines have received worldwide attention. However, pharmaceutical logistics is not only of paramount importance during a pandemic; That is why we have decided to guarantee that, in the long term, medicines will arrive where they are needed in the future, even faster and safer than before, as part of a new quality assurance program, ”said Dr. Rolf Schnitzler, CEO of Budapest Airport. He emphasized: “Such a large-scale project can only be implemented through cooperation, therefore on behalf of Budapest …

CargoAi is launching a Board of Advisors formed of talented experts who represent the diverse views and perspectives of the airfreight industry. This advisory body is tasked with reflecting on the industry’s digital transformation and actively steering CargoAi in developing value-added solutions for the cargo community. The Board will meet quarterly, with the first remote meeting taking place in April. The Board of Advisors is currently formed of four members, who will soon be joined by other experts. The current members are: Markus Flacke – Reknown industry expert, former Managing Director of CHAMP Cargosystems Liana Coyne – Director at Coyne Airways Cyril Dumon – CEO Asia-Pacific at Bollore Logistics Ricardo Pilon – Chief Cargo Transformation Officer at Millennium Aviation & Vice-President, Consulting Solutions at Aviation Strategies International “CargoAi is one of the most visionary and innovative companies in the market. The team has a clear understanding of cargo, and ambitions to connect a variety of actors to more than just an e-booking platform, but one that provides actionable information and intelligence,” explained Liana Coyne. Pilon said, “With a diverse and dynamic team, I am excited to see how inclusive the CargoAi team is and how this focus on people and relationships will help further cement sustainable growth in cargo transportation and logistics, underpinned by planned offerings, future-wise services and incremental propositions around market access and commercial optimization.” “Helping to reflect on and model the future of air cargo through digital is a really exciting project, and that’s why I agreed to join the CargoAi Board of Advisors. We’re at a crossroads – at the beginning of an unprecedented transformation in air cargo’s processes,” explained Dumon. “The team is incredible – …

project44 has announced that it has acquired Ocean Insights to expand its ocean solution by adding the broadest container tracking capabilities in the market, as well as one-of-a-kind sailing schedule and ocean analytics products; terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Combining Ocean Insights’ tracking and analytics with the project44 platform and ecosystem establishes project44 as the clear market leader with an unrivaled set of multi-modal solutions for end-to-end supply chain visibility. Surging global trade since the outset of the pandemic has resulted in massive disruptions in the global supply chain. Since March 2020, freight rates increased by as much as 174 per cent due to the increased global demand for electronics, PPE goods and stay-at-home consumer products. At the same time, COVID-19 and other restrictions have caused significant port congestions, and rollover percentages have never been higher. To meet these global challenges and build resilience, supply chain leaders are adopting global freight visibility and digitalisation. Headquartered in Germany and founded in 2012, Ocean Insights pioneered ocean freight visibility by combining carrier data, live vessel tracking and sailing schedule data in one data-rich platform. Tracking 350,000 containers daily, Ocean Insights provides track and trace functionality across the vast majority of shipping lines, 700 seaports, and more than 5,000 vessels as well as handling over five million sailing schedule changes per day. “Ocean freight is a linchpin for global supply chains. For organisations shipping internationally, the lack of ocean visibility can start a costly domino effect throughout the supply chain,” said Jett McCandless, Founder and CEO of project44. “Ocean Insights has dominated the container tracking space and we look forward to providing the industry not only the best ocean capabilities, but …

dnata has handled more than 5,000 cargo-in-cabin flights, safely moving over 50,000 tons of shipments at Dubai International airport (DXB), since March last year. In response to the strong air cargo market demand for the rapid, reliable and efficient transportation of essential commodities, several airlines have introduced additional cargo capacity during the pandemic by using passenger aircraft with seats fully or partially removed from the cabin. To adapt to changing customer needs, dnata has enhanced services, improved processes and trained more than 500 employees to safely and efficiently handle passenger planes carrying cargo only. dnata has introduced effective procedures across a range of aircraft types. With no existing industry standards to refer to, the company built the necessary procedures from scratch in collaboration with key stakeholders, including IATA and several airline customers. To ensure the procedures were safe, trials were conducted at DXB using various loading and unloading methods across both narrow and wide-body aircraft. This allowed dnata to identify the best and safest procedures to serve cargo-in-cabin flights. Paul Littlejohn, dnata’s Divisional Vice President for Airside Operations, said, “We are proud to reach this memorable milestone in such a short space of time. There was intense demand for airlines to recoup revenue through cargo-in-cabin operations and we needed to be in a position to provide safe and effective ground handling services quickly. Our teams delivered innovative, efficient solutions at great speed while never letting our safety standards drop. “We continue to work hard to consistently provide the highest level of service and safety to all of our airline customers, every day.” Although passenger flights have been significantly reduced globally during the pandemic, air cargo demand has remained stable and …

DHL Industrial Projects is supporting Dunakeszi Jármjavító Kft with the transport of the largest order of rolling stock in the history of Hungary. In total, 676 coaches are being transferred from the production site in Dunakeszi, Hungary, to Egypt within a period of 32 months. The company will manage the end-to-end transport of the coaches, each weighing 48 tonnes and measuring 24.5 metres in length, as well as 4.5 meters in height. Packaged for export, the coaches are transported via rail to the port of Koper, Slovenia, where DHL is integrating the cargo via its charter carriers. From there DHL will deliver the cargo via sea directly onto the railway network in Egypt at the port of Alexandria. The first batch arrived safely in Alexandria on February 23. “The collaboration with Dunakeszi Járm?javító Kft is further testimony to the fact we offer the exact expertise required for this extraordinary transport,” says Ryan Foley, CEO DHL Industrial Projects. He adds, “I’m incredibly proud of the team in helping us to become a first-choice provider of the delivery of these coaches in a country with longstanding heritage in the field of rolling stock.”

The UPS Foundation and UPS Healthcare are moving quickly to support an equitable delivery program and sustainable global supply chain of COVID-19 vaccines. UPS, in collaboration with COVAX, Gavi, the vaccine alliance and CARE will initially facilitate the delivery of 20 million doses for countries that have not had sufficient access to vaccines, including top priority groups like healthcare workers. “We believe that we have the ability and responsibility to facilitate and accelerate equitable COVID-19 vaccine delivery around the world,” said Scott Price, President UPS International. “UPS continues to build and inspire action across a network of global public-private partnerships that will ensure vaccines move more efficiently and equitably. Our work focuses on countries with limited resources and constrained supply chains and infrastructures. The goal is simple and our commitment is unwavering – moving our world forward by delivering what matters.” The latest global vaccination rate is approximately six million doses per day. According to several studies, at that rate it would take an estimated 5.4 years to cover 75 per cent of the global population with a two-dose vaccine. The role of public-private partnerships is a vital component in building global solutions for global challenges, such as the pandemic, and the needed access to vaccines to fight it. Building Partnerships Global success hinges upon bringing together and mobilizing the right partnerships. Helping to establish and fuel these efforts, UPS Healthcare and The UPS Foundation will: • Provide transportation solutions that leverage UPS cold-chain technology • Dedicate ultra-low temperature freezer donations necessary to maintain vaccine dose viability at the correct temperature in varying environments • Commit UPS loaned executives to provide logistics expertise and coordination with vaccine manufacturers and NGO …

Volga-Dnepr Airlines (Volga-Dnepr) and Leipzig/Halle Airport (LEJ) have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to set up an Emergency Logistics/Humanitarian Hub. The decision comes as a logical step for further development of long-lasting strategic cooperation between LEJ and Volga-Dnepr Group. Both parties agree to strengthen their unique services in the humanitarian sector, shouldered by an expert combination of the ‘carrier-airport’ capabilities. While the Group is ready to ramp up Emergency Logistics Hub with its operational base in LEJ, over 30 years of experience and expertise in humanitarian logistics, a diversified fleet of freighters including ramp ones which are self-sufficient for flight operations to remote or less equipped airports, LEJ is ready to offer its beneficial market-driven commercial conditions for export warehousing, long-term storage conditions for emergency cargo and terminal handling package to support the industry. Volga-Dnepr and LEJ will follow the road-map to jointly promote the airport as the Emergency Logistics Hub through the task-oriented marketing campaign, specialized educational workshops, streamlined cooperation with international non-governmental organisations, international intergovernmental organisations of Germany, major equipment manufacturers, freight forwarders and other stakeholders of the sector to foster humanitarian cargo operations at Leipzig/Halle.

Highlighting a clear V-shaped recovery, air cargo started the year on a positive note, with industry-wide Cargo Tonne-Kilometres (CTKs) rising above the pre-pandemic levels for the first time since the crisis started. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released January 2021 data for global air cargo markets showing that air cargo demand returned to pre-Covid-19 levels. The air cargo volumes in CTKs terms were up by 1.1% in January 2021 compared with 2019 levels and 6.1% year on year. Meanwhile, capacity for the month was down by 19.5% compared with 2019 and 19.3% on last year. As a result, cargo load factors stood at 58.9%, which is a 12 percentage point improvement on 2019 and 14.1 percentage point increase on last year. All regions saw improvement in air cargo demand this month. North America and Africa were the strongest performers, with CTKs up by a robust 11.7% and 21.1%, respectively compared with the pre-crisis period (January 2019). Drivers of air cargo demand related to manufacturing and economic activity remained generally supportive. However, emerging markets reported weaker export demand amidst COVID-19 outbreaks. Alexandre de Juniac, Director General & Chief Executive, IATA said, “Air cargo traffic is back to pre-crisis levels and that is some much-needed good news for the global economy. But while there is a strong demand to ship goods, our ability is capped by the shortage of belly capacity normally provided by passenger aircraft. That should be a sign to governments that they need to share their plans for restart so that the industry has clarity in terms of how soon more capacity can be brought online. In normal times, a third of world trade by value moves …

According to aviation industry consultant IBA, demand for freighter aircraft continues to grow strongly as a result of Covid-19, but values and lease rates remain suppressed by an oversupply of feedstock aircraft. The data from IBA’s InsightIQ platform indicates that since May 2020, almost 200 narrow-body and wide-body aircraft have joined the worldwide freighter fleet. The active fleet of narrow-body freighters has grown by 61 to 625 aircraft with newly converted Boeing 737-800s accounting for around half that growth. The Boeing 757-200 remains the pre-eminent freighter aircraft with a fleet of 298 aircraft (converted and factory delivered), followed by the Boeing 737-400 with 148. The active mid-size wide-body freighter fleet has grown more steeply in the same period by 80 to 624 aircraft. The Boeing 767-300ER is the dominant aircraft in this segment, both accounting for more than half the growth as many ex-passenger aircraft and converted, and in total fleet size which now stands at 315 aircraft when one adds converted and factory delivered aircraft. The A330 freighter fleet is also growing strongly but from a much lower base, with 6 aircraft converted during this period, but with an additional pool of aircraft taking its fleet size to 74. The large wide-body freighter fleet has grown by 55 to 601 aircraft since May 2020. The re-entry into service from storage of 29 Boeing 747-400s and 7 MD-11Fs accounted for around half the growth, with the remainder made up of factory deliveries of 22 Boeing 777Fs and 3 747-8Fs. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, freighter aircraft usage has grown strongly, driven by the fall in belly hold capacity as passenger aircraft were grounded. The number of freighter aircraft …

Cathay Pacific has successfully delivered the first batch of Fosun Pharma/BioNTech vaccines to Hong Kong, drawing on its long-established expertise in pharmaceutical shipments under cold chain protocols to meet the handling demands of the Fosun Pharma/BioNTech product. The first delivery of the first batch of one million Fosun Pharma/BioNTech vaccines to be supplied to Hong Kong arrived from Frankfurt were unloaded as priority from a freighter flight to the Cathay Pacific Cargo Terminal. Tom Owen, Director – Cargo, Cathay Pacific, said, “Different vaccines have differing requirements. The Fosun Pharma/BioNTech vaccine must be transported in a deep frozen state, which requires more complex transportation and storage solutions. Our ‘vaccine solution’ has proven itself to be ideally suited to the fast and effective distribution of this and other vaccines across the globe, using our freighter and passenger fleet, and our extensive global network.” The Cathay Pacific shipments to date include the milestone import of the first vaccines for use in the airline’s home city of Hong Kong on 19 February. The one million doses of Sinovac vaccine were loaded inside six temperature-controlled Envirotainer RAP e2 containers, to maintain the vaccine temperature range of 2°C to 8°C, and carried in the belly hold of an Airbus A330 operating the scheduled passenger flight, CX391. Owen adds, “This was also the first shipment to use our new Ultra Track service, a key part of our vaccine solution.” On the same flight, there were 200,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine destined for Mexico. The single Envirotainer RAP e2 container was towed to the Cathay Pacific Cargo Terminal in a thermal dolly and transferred to a cool room set at 15°-25°C, where it was recharged ahead of …