DHL Global Forwarding to launch air freight charter for bio and healthcare

by Payload Asia

DHL Global Forwarding has launched an air freight charter connecting Asia Pacific to Europe and the United States to meet demand from customers in the technology, manufacturing, life science and healthcare sectors. 

The twice weekly charter will be managed by StarBroker, DHL Global Forwarding’s in-house charter team, which will depart from Chongqing (CKG) and fly to Amsterdam (AMS), Chicago (ORD), and Incheon (ICN) before returning to China.  

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, exports of healthcare products and medical devices from South Korea and China has increased more than 25 percent year on year in the first half. 

DHL Global Forwarding is well aware that belly capacity is tight and the situation in the air freight market is volatile, despite some passenger airlines resuming operations. 

The freight forward specialist wants to ensure the last piece of the puzzle by ensuring safe air transport for temperature-sensitive products, such as vaccines. 

In a recently published white paper with McKinsey, DHL explored the logistical challenges in delivering the needed vaccines and medical goods for coronavirus globally and found that more than 200,000 pallet shipments and around 15 million deliveries in cooling boxes as well as more than 15,000 flights will be required to do this. 

In April, DHL Global Forwarding delivered more than 1.3 million Covid-19 test kits to different parts of the globe, and this was just the start. It also dedicated a 100-tonne weekly air freight service for organisations and governments shipping health and medical-related items from China to Middle East and Africa.

DHL Global Forwarding is banking on its global network of facilities to comply with the European Union’s GDP guidelines for life science and healthcare supply chains, whilst its temperature-controlled solutions DHL Air Thermonet and DHL LifeConEx will ensure visibility and active monitoring of temperature-controlled goods whilst in transit. 

Following the China-Netherlands-US-South Korea charter, the freight forwarder is set to launch another one on 23 September to deliver into Australia four times a week. The charter will consolidate temperature-controlled and high-technology products from Europe, China and Singapore in Hong Kong before transporting them to Sydney, the airline noted.