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Delivering healthcare in a time of COVID-19


Simarco Worldwide Logistics played its part in combating the COVID-19 pandemic last year, transporting urgently needed healthcare products by air from Portugal and China to the


US – and scooping the BIFA Air Cargo Services Award


Simarco’s UK-based client had been supplying soap dispensers to the US for several years at the rate of several thousand units annually. These had been moved by sea – but things changed dramatically in March 2020. Mark Taylor, air and ocean freight director at


Simarco, recalled: “When the COVID-19 virus emerged, demand for our client’s products boomed overnight. “The requirement from its customers in the US


grew in line with the expansion of the virus. It was a race against time for our customer to ramp up production at its factory in Portugal to meet the demand from its hubs in Texas and Ohio and sub-distribution centres (DCs).” Simarco’s brief was to find the most reliable and safest door-to-door route.


Trusted partners The company managed all shipments for the project on a DDP (delivered duty paid) basis, which involved a significant amount of liaison with overseas partners in differing time zones, with differing regulations, requirements and needs. Taylor stressed the importance of Simarco’s


trusted local partners in ensuring the success of the project. “Quite simply, it could not have worked without them,” he said. “They performed miracles at times in terms of finding the best routes, speeding shipments through Customs and making sure the products arrived undamaged.” Aviation was hit hard by travel restrictions, and


this affected the options that would usually be available. In the early days there was only one direct flight per week from Portugal to the US, and that had a limited capacity. Simarco’s partner in Portugal found an alternative solution. Twice-weekly collections from the supplier in Lisbon linked up with American Airlines flights from Madrid to Dallas-Fort Worth. This was a perfect fit for the Texas DC and it


March 2021


Simarco’s UK-based client had been supplying soap dispensers to the US for several years


reduced the transit time significantly. Shipments bound for the consignee’s main distribution centre in Ohio, meanwhile, flew via Chicago. Later on, Simarco’s client established a new


production facility in China in order to fulfil the increasing US demand for its products. Taylor said: “When we started moving


shipments from China, it was the peak airfreight season so our local partner had to get creative. It used a direct charter service to Chicago from a provincial Chinese airport rather than the main hubs. It meant that, with the time difference, the goods were actually arriving the same day as they left China, which was a big bonus.”


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One of the biggest challenges relating to these


shipments was the imposition of a 25% tariff by the Trump administration on Chinese goods entering the US.


Special dispensation “Given that we were moving a healthcare product, we managed to get a special dispensation from US Customs so that it was only subject to a 2% import duty,” Taylor said. The airfreight project finished in December


2020, by which time Simarco had moved between 700 and 750 tonnes of cargo. The company is still moving ocean freight and carrying out European work for the client, and transporting shipments by air as required. Looking back, Taylor said: “Moving cargo is


what we do every day. This project, however, involved a different type of expectation and pressure to normal. We were conscious that any delays or wrong choices would make the battle against the virus more difficult. “Thankfully, together with our partners, we


achieved what we set out to do and we are very proud to have been able to make a small but tangible difference in the context of the pandemic in the US.”


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Mark Taylor: “When the Covid-19 virus emerged, demand for our client’s products boomed overnight”


BIFAlink Value-added service


Taylor said that some of the pallets on the Chicago routing were not able to withstand the rigours of the journey. Therefore, Simarco instigated a value-added service in consultation with the consignee and UK customer. Taylor explained: “Our partner arranged


to collect the goods from the airline and take them to its warehouse for inspection. If we identified damages we photographed any issues and arranged to repackage or repalletise to the client’s specifications before delivery to the distribution centre. “This assisted the end-consignee in its


processes and enabled it to turn around the products far more quickly.”


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