Airfreight takes stock of rise in cold-chain transport [VIDEO]

BUDAPEST – Speaking at the fifth Pharma & Bioscience Conference in Budapest, IAG Cargo’s global head of pharmaceuticals and life sciences Alan Dorling noted today that, despite “a huge amount of change,” the aviation logistics business still had a long way to go to meet the demands of shippers. Dorling said shippers were worried that, “general cargo people are handling specialized products,” raising questions of whether they were equipped to handle sensitive and valuable cargo.

IAG Cargo found that 60 percent of respondents were concerned about, “expertise of staff or human error.” In short, shippers doubt that their products are getting the treatment they deserve, but as monitoring and tracking/visibility improve, those rates should decline.

However, with lifestyle diseases like diabetes still rising – reaching a dismaying 22 percent of Mexico’s population for example – cold chain’s role in air freight will only grow in the years ahead. That demand should make it a destination for new talent entering the logistics business, which Dorling noted, means more innovation and development.

One newcomer to the business is Fen Lasseel, business development manager for Sky Fresh, who joined from Elite Sports. Sky Fresh was contracted by Brussels Airport to develop a pharma handling dashboard that will soon be expanded to dangerous goods and other cargo management. The dashboard quantifies the aggregate pharma ground handling at Brussels Airport, a challenging task that Lasseel said was important because it, “showed the industry that it could be done, and that it works.”

Below, Lasseel talks about the project: