Two Alitalia cargo flights landed yesterday in Belo Horizonte with a load of anti-meningitis vaccines that will be used for a health protection programme for children and adolescents in Minas Gerais. The two Boeing 777s, in the 200 and 300 versions, took off from Fiumicino on April 1, half an hour away from each other, and carried a total of 3 million doses.
This was the first time that the Italian airport based in Rome Fiumicino acted as a logistical base for the transport of vaccines produced in Italy. The operation has confirmed Alitalia’s high specialization in the transport of pharmaceutical products, also certified by IATA with the attestation CEIV Pharma (Center of Excellence for Independent Validators in Pharmaceutical Logistics) which testifies the compliance with the highest international standards for the transport of these special products. The same attestation was issued to Alitalia for handling activities for the loading and unloading service.
The operation was coordinated by the Alitalia cargo management in particular by the team of specialists for the management of the transport of pharmaceutical products, with the involvement of Kuehne + Nagel, leading freight forwarder in the management of air cargo logistics, SkyCell, a company supplier of the temperature-controlled containers in which the vaccines traveled, and Alha Group, a company providing the logistics service at Fiumicino airport.
Alitalia constantly carries out cargo flights to various areas of the world, in particular in addition to Brazil to India, Japan, and the USA, also being able to count on the availability of two Boeing 777s which since last year have been converted only to freight transport with the complete removal of the passenger seats.
