Mumbai. 13 January 2021: As part of the momentous mission, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) today will facilitate the delivery of vials of Covishield vaccine across 22 destinations in the country. The first vaccine shipment departed from the airport at 5:20 AM to Goa through GoAir carrying 2 boxes of the vaccine followed by the shipment to Rajkot at 6:00 AM through SpiceJet carrying 7 boxes. The SOPs implemented by the airport in anticipation of the vaccine distribution saw the terminal register a cargo processing time of just 7 minutes, right from goods acceptance to dispatch at ramp.
CSMIA will facilitate the distribution of a total of 227 boxes, containing approximately 2,72,400 doses of the vaccine. 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 through SpiceJet, IndiGo, GoAir and Vistara. Of these, Raipur and Cochin emerged as the destinations with the largest vaccine deliveries of 27 and 25 boxes respectively.
Being a pharma hub, CSMIA is a veteran in transporting vaccine across the world and has placed a well-defined process for the faster turnaround of COVID-19 vaccine EXIM and transshipment movements. The airport has deployed a dedicated COVID-task force in order to reduce dwell time and facilitate advanced planning and collaboration between the airport and all stakeholders in this process – the airline customers, supply chain partners, regulatory and governmental bodies, and vaccine distributors. It has also initiated a full-time 24×7 Customer Service Cell for COVID-19 vaccine EXIM consignments, in order to address customer queries, pre-alerts and status updates.
Moreover, the airport is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities such as Asia’s largest temperature-controlled Export Pharma Excellence Centre and Pharma-dedicated Import Cold Zone, a first-of-its-kind – ‘Cooltainer’ facility and the largest hub for Envirotainer movements with over 60 power outlets for processing pharma active containers. Additionally, it 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.
In the wake of the pandemic, CSMIA has been relentlessly operating its cargo handling activities to cater to the greater need to mobilize and supply essential life-saving commodities across India and the world. The airport continues to undertake precautionary measures such as thermal temperature reading, social distancing, sensor-based hand sanitizers, wearing PPE, and regular sanitization of cargo facilities. As the first airport in India and third in Asia to achieve the IATA CEIV certification as well as being the only Indian airport in a strategic partnership with Pharma.aero, CSMIA is well-positioned to support, maintain and optimize pharma-dedicated corridors globally.
