COVID-19 vaccine transportation begins at Mumbai airport, delivers 2,74,400 doses to 22 cities

The logistics of COVID-19 vaccine has begun at the Mumbai airport, facilitating the delivery of about 2,72,400 doses of the Covishield vaccine to 22 domestic destinations with GoAir’s first flight to Goa. This came a day after a massive pan-India inoculation drive against COVID-19 was set in process with more than 56 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine leaving Pune for 13 cities across the country. As part of the mission, Mumbai Airport will facilitate the distribution of a total of 227 boxes containing about 2,72,400 doses of the vaccine. These shipments are being carried out by SpiceJet, IndiGo, GoAir and Vistara. These will be delivered to Goa, Bagdogra, Rajkot, Ranchi, Imphal, Agartala, Cochin, Bhopal, Kanpur, Jammu, Srinagar, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Gorakhpur, Raipur, Dehradun, Varanasi, Indore, Trivandrum and Jabalpur.
The first vaccine shipment departed from the airport to Goa through GoAir carrying two boxes of the vaccine, followed by a flight to Rajkot at 6:00 am, which carried seven boxes of the vaccines and was operated by SpiceJet.
The Mumbai airport has an exclusive station dealing with storage and maintenance of both e-type, and t-type active containers that help facilitate the seamless distribution of vaccines across India. The airport has placed a well-defined process for the faster turnaround of COVID-19 vaccine EXIM and transhipment movements, CSMIA said.
It added that the standard operating procedures (SOPs) implemented by the airport in anticipation of the vaccine distribution saw the terminal register a cargo processing time of just seven minutes, right from goods acceptance to dispatch at ramp.
Besides, the airport has deployed a dedicated COVID-19 task force in order to reduce dwell time and facilitate advanced planning and collaboration between the airport and all stakeholders in this process, said the release.