26 september 2020
10:23
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Brussels Airport is Europe’s largest pharmaceutical hub, with mobile frigoboxes, high-tech containers and 30,000 square meters of temperature-controlled warehouses. A feat awaits: the worldwide distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. “With empty passenger planes.”
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After a security check, we have just entered the tarmac of the cargo airport of Brussels Airport. The European air transport hub for medicines and vaccines has been gearing up for months for a monster operation: the worldwide shipment of billions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines. While the rat race to produce them is still is underway, the logistics world is puzzling over this feat.
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“We expect the first, albeit limited, shipments at the end of October,” says Nathan De Valck, responsible for Brussels Airport’s air cargo activities, without going into detail.
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Speed and a constant temperature are crucial for the air transport of vaccines. “Our advantage is that we have 30,000 square meters of temperature-controlled pharmaceutical warehouses – the largest surface of all European airports – and transport tens of thousands of tons of vaccines every year,” says De Valck.
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We are the first airport to develop a fleet of mobile refrigerator boxes.
Nathan De Valck, Brussels Airport
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Brussels Airport is surfing along on the success of the large pharmaceutical cluster in our country. It has facilities of GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, which also develop candidate Covid-19 vaccines. An additional advantage is that a quarter of the 100 logistics service providers in Brussels Airport are specialized in pharmaceuticals.
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In the shadow of a Qatar Airways plane, we stand face to face with nine large containers on wheels. ‘These are our Airside Pharma Transporters, a fleet of mobile refrigerator boxes that we were the first airport to develop ourselves. For example, we can also transport the vaccines cooled on the tarmac, from the cold stores to the aircraft. That can take twenty minutes to an hour, ‘says De Valck. ‘They run on batteries and are equipped with solar panels and a cooling unit. A sensor monitors the temperature in real time and an alarm goes off if something goes wrong. This sets us apart from other airports. ‘
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8,000 jumbo jets
As chairman of Pharma.Aero, which coordinates international airports (such as Singapore and Miami), pharmaceuticals (such as Pfizer, GSK and Johnson & Johnson) and logistics companies, De Valck has a good view of the uncertainties surrounding the large-scale distribution of the Covid 19 vaccines in full development.
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‘Through intense contacts with pharmaceutical companies, we know that there will be different transport conditions, depending on the vaccine type. We are familiar with classic refrigerated transport, between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius. But some vaccines will be shipped in freezing temperatures as low as -70 degrees Celsius, with dry ice (frozen CO₂, ed.) Or liquid nitrogen. That is already happening now. But the key question is: what volumes will we have to transport under what conditions? ‘
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One of the potential bottlenecks in the air transport of covid vaccines is the available capacity. The international aviation association IATA has calculated that 8,000 jumbo jets are needed.
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Today, half of the vaccine transport by air from Brussels Airport is done by full-cargo aircraft and half by passenger aircraft. ‘The pharmaceutical companies often prefer passenger planes because they fly more frequently and punctually,’ says De Valck.
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But due to the corona pandemic, passenger air traffic has fallen sharply. ‘I do not rule out that empty passenger planes will distribute vaccines. At the start of the corona crisis, when there was a great shortage of mouth masks, passenger planes were deployed to distribute them from China. But it is too early to predict which vaccine volumes will pass through Brussels and where they will go. ‘
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Astronomical value
Kuehne + Nagel, one of the major logistics service providers specializing in pharmaceutical transport at Brussels Airport, acknowledges that discussions are ongoing with vaccine manufacturers. ‘We don’t put names on it,’ says Geert Torfs, Air Logistics director Belux. ‘But we expect the first shipments of corona vaccines around the turn of the year. A large part will be export from Belgium, but some will be imported. ‘
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Kuehne + Nagel has been in a new building at Brucargo West since June, with more than 15,000 square meters of temperature-controlled warehouses, of which 6,000 square meters are used for medicines and vaccines. Not illogical because of the astronomical value of the goods, these are heavily secured. There are cameras everywhere, there is physical surveillance and only specialized personnel with an access badge can enter.
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‘A vaccine shipment can quickly be worth millions of euros,’ says Wim Rauws, Pharma & Healthcare manager Air Logistics Kuehne + Nagel BeLux, while we see the fence of the cargo airport at the back of the building. ‘We reduce the risk of damage and temperature deviations because we get to the airport very quickly.’
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With specialized refrigerated trucks and a worldwide logistics network, Kuehne + Nagel guarantees the cold chain transport of vaccines from the pharmaceutical site to the vaccination centers. It invested in a renewal of the pharma hub at Johannesburg airport in South Africa.
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In the first hall of the Western European pharmaceutical hub at Brucargo there are pallets with boxes full of medicines and medical devices that are stored between 15 and 25 degrees Celsius. Kuehne + Nagel uses a wide range of high-tech packaging to avoid temperature variations. This ranges from gel packs that are individually pre-cooled at -20 degrees Celsius and insulating blankets to containers with electrically charged compressors. It also uses data loggers, sensors that monitor the temperature and stability data of vaccines.
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In the hall where probably Covid-19 vaccines will be at a constant temperature of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, a forklift truck will slide pallets with boxes full of medication. The destination is Canada and in an open refrigerated container we see steaming blocks of dry ice in cardboard packaging. ‘This contains blood plasma that we cool to -60 degrees Celsius,’ says Rauws, pointing to another container.
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He suspects that specialized refrigerated packaging may soon become scarce. ‘The demand for dry ice and refrigerated containers for vaccines will be high worldwide. We are fully negotiating with suppliers to ensure that we have enough. ‘
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Farmahub
Brussels Airport has the largest surface area of temperature-controlled warehouses for medicines and vaccines of all European airports: 30,000 square meters, an area that has doubled in five years. The number of pharmaceutical shipments flown grew by 85 percent in the past four years. With annual double-digit growth rates, that is well above the growth in overall air cargo volumes. 25 of the airport’s 100 logistics companies specialize in the handling of medicines and vaccines. For export, the share of pharmaceutical transport in Brussels Airport’s total air freight is 8 percent. That is more than twice the average of all European airports.
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