26 september 2020
10:23
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Brussels Airport is Europe’s largest pharmaceutical hub, with mobile frigoboxes, high-tech containers and 30,000 square meters of temperature-controlled warehouses. A feat awaits: the worldwide distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. “With empty passenger planes.”
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After a security check, we have just entered the tarmac of the cargo airport of Brussels Airport. The European air transport hub for medicines and vaccines has been gearing up for months for a monster operation: the worldwide shipment of billions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines. While the rat race to produce them is still is underway, the logistics world is puzzling over this feat.
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“We expect the first, albeit limited, shipments at the end of October,” says Nathan De Valck, responsible for Brussels Airport’s air cargo activities, without going into detail.
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Speed and a constant temperature are crucial for the air transport of vaccines. “Our advantage is that we have 30,000 square meters of temperature-controlled pharmaceutical warehouses – the largest surface of all European airports – and transport tens of thousands of tons of vaccines every year,” says De Valck.
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We are the first airport to develop a fleet of mobile refrigerator boxes.