Air France-KLM is among airlines gearing up for the challenge of transporting millions of doses of temperature-sensitive COVID-19 vaccines amid a travel slump.
Breakthrough vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc have yet to win final approval, but the drugmakers, and their logistics and cargo providers are not waiting for a green light to activate freight plans.
Air France-KLM, which has decades of experience shipping medicines and vaccines in temperature-controlled conditions, is preparing a test run in the next few days to fly out dummy vaccine shipments from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
The task is complicated by the conditions required by the Pfizer and Moderna shots — with respective storage temperatures of minus-80°C and minus-20°C.
“It’s going to be a major logistics challenge,” Air France cargo chief Christophe Boucher said, citing the “massive” volume of vaccines to be distributed globally.
“Another difficulty is the temperature control,” Boucher said in an interview at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, where cargo specialists were preparing to load consignments of super-cooled rabies vaccines bound for Brazil.
The COVID-19 airlift is being planned amid a partial shutdown of global air travel.
Airlines have warned that travel curbs could hamper the effort, as about 45 percent of global cargo typically travels in passenger plane holds.
Air France-KLM does not rule out bringing idled jets back into service for the vaccine shipments, pharma cargo manager Florent Gand said.
“We have some planes currently grounded that we can use if necessary to transport the COVID-19 vaccines around the world,” Gand said.
Tesla Inc temporarily halted some production at its auto assembly plant in California because of problems with its supply chain, but work has begun to resume, CEO Elon Musk told employees in an e-mail on Thursday. “We are experiencing some parts supply issues, so took the opportunity to bring Fremont production down for a few days to do equipment upgrades and maintenance,” Musk said in an all-staff message seen by Bloomberg. The factory was “back up and running as of yesterday,” and would rapidly ramp up to full production of Model 3 and Model Y cars “over the next several days,”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to post a 25 percent year-on-year increase in sales in the first quarter of this year to US$12.91 billion, up from US$10.31 billion a year earlier, as its production is at full capacity, market advisory firm TrendForce Corp said in a note last week. The increase would help TSMC cement its leadership in the industry by taking a 56 percent market share in the global pure wafer foundry business, TrendForce said. Its forecast was in line with TSMC’s estimate in January, which pointed to a range of US$12.7 billion to US$13 billion for the
MULTI-USE: The arrangement of seats in future vehicles would be different, allowing passengers to do everything they do at home, the CEO of the firm’s EV platform said Electric vehicles (EVs) developed on a Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) platform would be built like “a smartphone on a different platform,” Jack Cheng (鄭顯聰), chief executive officer of the Hon Hai-initiated MIH Open Platform Alliance, said on Saturday. It would be the ultimate goal to make vehicles built on the platform an extension of the driver’s home, he said during an online presentation. The alliance aims to provide resources to automakers and boost Taiwan’s EV development, with a vision to make an EV its owner’s “second home,” Cheng said. “Whatever they can do in their home, they will be able
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was on Thursday set to sell local currency bonds, as it prepared for a spending blitz amid a global chip shortage. The world’s largest contract chipmaker planned to price about NT$16 billion (US$565.25 million) of notes in three parts in an auction, though the actual issuance size might change. The manufacturer would have to contend with a recent rise in rates globally that has sent many corporate bond yields up from record lows in the past few weeks. The debt offering comes at a promising time for the semiconductor industry as the world scrambles its way
RSS