Historic Day: India starts moving Covid vaccines from Pune 

January 12, 2021: Today, India started moving the first temperature-controlled consignments of Covishield vaccines manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) from Pune to different parts of the country.

On January 3, 2021, Drugs Controller General of India VG Somani had formally approved the emergency-use of two Covid-19 vaccines, including Covishield which has been developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

“Three temperature-controlled trucks rolled out of the Serum Institute's gates shortly before 5 am and left for Pune airport, from where the vaccines will be flown across India. The consignment for Mumbai will leave by road. Trucks belonging to Kool-ex Cold Chain are being used to ferry the vaccine stocks from SII,” reports Mint.

Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted, “Today Air India, SpiceJet, GoAir and IndiGo will operate 9 flights from Pune with 56.5 lakh doses to Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Shillong, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Bengaluru, Lucknow & Chandigarh.”

Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director, SpiceJet, said, “I am happy to share that SpiceJet has carried India’s first consignment of Covid vaccine today. The first consignment of Covishield consisting of 34 boxes and weighing 1088 kg was carried from Pune to Delhi on SpiceJet flight 8937. We will be carrying multiple vaccine consignments to different Indian cities including Guwahati, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Patna and Vijayawada through the day today. Today marks the beginning of a long and decisive phase in India’s fight against the pandemic and SpiceJet is proud to assist in the biggest vaccination drive in the history of mankind.

SpiceJet transported multiple vaccine consignments from Pune to different Indian cities including 276,000 doses to Guwahati, 996,000 doses to Kolkata, 3,72,000 doses to Hyderabad, 480,000 doses to Bhubaneswar, 648,000 doses to Bengaluru, 552,000 doses to Patna and 408,000 doses to Vijayawada on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Air India tweeted that it carried the first consignment of 2,76,000 vaccine doses weighing 700 kilograms from Pune to Ahmedabad today.

Bengaluru International Airport Spokesperson said, "54 boxes of the Covid-19 vaccine, consisting of approximately 650,000 doses arrived at BLR Airport from Pune at 1145 hours on Tuesday, January 12, 2021.

GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo (GHAC) also handled the 1st consignment of Covid 19 vaccines. The shipment arrived at the cargo terminal by the Spicejet freighter, SG7466 at 11:30 am from Pune.

The consignment consisting of 31 boxes of 1 MT of Covishield vaccine were offloaded from the aircraft parked in the adjoining dedicated cargo apron and swiftly taken to the vaccine storage and handling areas in the GHAC Terminal. The Task Force ensured the quick movement of the vaccine through the domestic inbound section to the reefer truck bound for Consignee (State Govt. Dept.).

#FlyAI : Air India is all set to play a pivotal role in vaccination mission, carrying the first consignment of 2,76,000 vaccine doses weighing 700 kgs approx from Pune to Ahmedabad today. pic.twitter.com/I1BBEn10iu

— Air India (@airindiain) January 12, 2021