ABC PHARMA
ABC’s fleet and network also add to its appeal for pharma customers. Its Boeing 747-8 freighters offer an advanced temperature-control capability, including being able to create separate onboard climate zones. The airline is already a prominent player on the major pharma tradelanes, notably connecting Europe and North America as well as the growing southeast Asia market where it’s well established in big and growing pharma markets such as China, Korea and Japan.
The ability to connect all points in its network within 48 hours over its Moscow hub, including ground handling, will also not have gone unnoticed among companies managing pharma cool chains.
Building a pharma network based on industry standards as well as ABC’s own standards is ongoing so that ultimately it has in place common and trusted handling procedures across its network. Business, meanwhile, continues to grow. In 2016, the airline carried three times more ‘active’ cargo containers of pharma shipments, for example.
Leading ABC’s focus on pharma is Andrey Andreev, the airline’s Vice President Europe, and now also Sales Director, Global Pharma.
“For us, CEIV certification is the entry ticket to the market. It proves the airline is on the right track in respect of the pharma handling rules and regulations set down by IATA. For our customers it is a good sign of our intent but we also recognise that we are working in a global industry and on specific lanes there are also strict local requirements we have to meet too. And, of course, customers have their own high internal rules and standards,” he comments.
ABC, he says, recognises it will have to
Andrey Andreev, AirBridgeCargo
meet all of these requirements if it is to achieve its goal of pharmaceutical traffic generating between 5% and 10% of its total business by the end of the year.
As an all-cargo airline, ABC already has an important advantage as far as many customers are concerned, Andrey believes. “If you look at the market, 80% of pharma shipments still move as general cargo and the remaining 20% is carried within an active or passive cool chain environment. It’s true that a good percentage of this business is carried in the bellyholds of passenger aircraft but I think a lot of customers will always question the level of priority their shipments will receive. Combination passengers put passengers and baggage ahead of cargo and with pharmaceuticals, you need a greater level of assurance. Customers know that for us, cargo is always first,” he comments.
Fedor Novikov, ABC’s Deputy General Director, Pharma Product, added: “ABC is also looking at new initiatives to help differentiate its ‘abc Pharma’ product offering. One of these is set to address the critical subject of monitoring temperature excursions for pharma products during the transportation process. It is looking at the use of data loggers that enable customers on the ground to track the temperature of their shipment in real-time.”
Fedor Novikov says coming to the market with a pharma product later than some airlines is also proving to be an advantage.
“We’ve been able to look at what is being offered in the market, learn from it by talking to customers and build a product and processes that are very in tune with what pharmaceutical companies want. We are getting very good support from our customers because they see us as a serious player in the market and we are being asked to support tenders with our freight forwarding partners for major pharma contracts. We are excited by what we can achieve this year,” he commented.
‘We are getting very good support from our customers because they see us as a serious player in the market.’
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