As supply chain players expand worldwide storage capacity for temperature-sensitive freight, Lufthansa Cargo unveiled its 1,000–square-metre pharma facility at Munich Airport, with space for up to 96 pallets and loose cargo in two different temperature ranges (+2 to +8 °C and +15 to +25 °C) and a freezer (down to -18 °C), a press release confirmed. 

Lufthansa Cargo Pharma Hub Munich, as it is called, took only five months to complete. 

The German cargo carrier earlier topped up on its storage capacity for temperature-sensitive cargo when it opened the Lufthansa Cargo Pharma Center Chicago at O’Hare Airport in June. Since the middle of the year, the 750–square–metre facility has provided space for up to 54 pallets and 102 cool containers. 

Most of the pharmaceutical shipments carried by Lufthansa Cargo are handled at the Frankfurt hub, one of the first pharma cool centres in the world to be CEIV Pharma-certified. It was extended back in 2018 by around two-thirds to 8,000 square metres. 

A CEIV Pharma certification by the International Air Transport Association of the Munich pharma hub is planned for this fall, which will be the first for the aviation association at Munich Airport.

Lufthansa Cargo expects its worldwide network to comprise 31 CEIV Pharma-certified pharma stations by the end of 2020.