EVA Air and Evergreen Airline Services Corp. (EGAS) both earned certification once again from the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA’s) Center of Excellence for Independent Validators in Pharmaceutical Logistics (CEIV Pharma). This certification verifies the highest standards in EVA’s and EGAS’s cold chain air and ground service operations at Taoyuan International Airport (TPE). It also distinguishes EVA as the only Taiwan-based airline and one of the few airlines in the world to have obtained certification for air and ground handling operations simultaneously, strengthening its position as one of the leading global one-stop cold chain pharmaceutical product carriers.
IATA provides consistency and standardization of global pharmaceutical transportation needs, standardizes and assists the air transportation supply chain to establish safe and reliable logistics standards. CEIV Pharma (Center of Excellence for Independent Validators) certification is regarded as the highest standard in the cold chain transportation industry, re-certification is required every three years. The companies not only have to put in a tremendous amount of funding to upgrade existing or build new cold chain facilities, but also arrange for employees to receive professional training and establish a complete quality control system in accordance with CEIV certification requirements to comply with international standards for transportation and storage. Standard specifications, especially for handling special pharmaceutical products that are temperature-sensitive, emphasize the need for strict standards and equipment.
EVA and EGAS pay special attention to the risk assessment and management of pharmaceutical cold chain transportation, with the complete planning for station capacity analysis and evaluation, personnel training, and handling procedures before each transportation. During certification process, it was highly recognized by IATA. In 2021, EVA and EGAS obtained the certification for the first time, it has created an average 30% annual growth rate for pharmaceutical cold chain transportation in the recent years. We expect the re-certification can help business growth in cold chain transportation, bringing the positive effects to Taiwan’s biotech industries and connecting with the world.
Due to the strict temperature-controlled transportation conditions of cold chain logistics, starting 2018, EVA has formed a team of experts to cooperate with several domestic and overseas temperature-controlled container suppliers to provide refrigerated, low-temperature, extremely-low temperature and other transportation services. Temperature-controlled containers can rely on physics and chemical reactions to keep it cold up to 144 hours, without the need for dry ice. The containers can be closely monitored to track the temperature and humidity of transported products, providing safe, diverse, convenient and rapid cold-chain transportation services. During the COVID-19 epidemic in the past, we provided fast air transportation services to import and export different vaccines, making contributions to society and epidemic prevention.
The advancement of cold chain transportation can fulfil the needs for economic development, it has proven its capability to ensure the dire needs of transportation of important supplies, especially in the face of an unknown epidemic. IATA’s CEIV Pharma (Center of Excellence for Independent Validators) certification can enhance the brand image for EVA and EGAS, and further gain the trust from customers, making us to become a strong supporter for global pharmaceutical cold chain transportation.
