AirBridgeCargo Airlines and DHL Global Forwarding have completed a trial using an Envirotainer RKN active container to transport a multimodal shipment of healthcare products from Moscow to Miami in accordance with Good Distribution Practice cool chain standards.

According to ABC, the trial replaced real vaccines with service water in order to test the delivery process at each step of the transportation and to monitor the condition of the water, which replicates the state of vaccines under similar circumstances.

Together with DHL Global Forwarding Russia, ABC’s pharma experts brought the RKN unit to the customer’s warehouse and accepted the cargo as a fully built-up unit ready for carriage at its airport warehouse premises. An RKN being physically loaded in a pharmaceutical cooler of a production plant without additional cross-dock operations represents a new solution in the Russian market. The total solution provided by the ABC and DGF teams covered delivery, leasing and guaranteed customs clearance for the customer, as well as ensuring a minimum transit time and the elimination of temperature risk.

The trial 400kg shipment travelled on one of ABC’s Boeing 747 freighters from Moscow directly to Chicago, where it was met by local ABC representatives who monitored the offloading and transportation of the RKN onto a refrigerated truck. The shipment was then taken to Miami and flew to the Nicaraguan capital Managua on another carrier.

“We are proud to have been given this opportunity to demonstrate the quality of the pharma solutions we can provide and to have earned the trust of our customer for the organization of vaccines transportation,” said Fedor Novikov, global director of pharma at AirBridgeCargo Airlines. “With ABC only developing temperature-sensitive solutions for less than a year, it is a huge achievement to be chosen to provide dedicated lift of healthcare products, which will improve the quality of life for people of the Republic of Nicaragua when we commence the delivery of vaccines in 2018.”

Envirotainer’s RKN active container ensures the integrity of pharma products throughout the transportation process by maintaining temperatures in the range of +2 to +8°C, +15 to +25 °C, or any chosen set temperature within the operating range of ±0 to +20°C.

ABC obtained the International Air Transport Association’s Center of Excellence for Independent Validators in Pharmaceutical Logistics certification in 2016, and gained accreditation under Envirotainer’s Qualified Envirotainer Provider Training and Quality programme at Moscow and Dallas in September 2017. The airline has now also been accredited in Chicago, Frankfurt, Los Angeles and Milan.