Vaccine producers exploring all modes of transports due to cost & capacity concern

June 27, 2020: Vaccine manufacturers around the world are looking for a potential Covid-19 vaccine to save the world from a catastrophe but they are also exploring to diversify their modes of transporting vaccines as the air freight rates and capacity remains to be a concern.

It is important to note that logistics already take a huge proportion of the final cost of the vaccines already in the market where the real cost is only around 35-40 percent. This is primarily because most of them move as comparatively expensive air freight with support of temperature-controlled containers. Since the belly capacity of aircraft fell in March 2020, the air freights have spiked again.

Alan Fernandes, Consultant, Zentiva, said "Vaccine manufacturers are looking into other modes of transports including the ocean as they also have to consider the cost along with speed and efficiency of the supply chain.”

“So the concern has been the curtailment of the passenger flights because the lot of belly space you could ride on to a host of destinations, which when you contract that is suddenly not available to you. The other concern also is this five spiralling rates because as the planes were parked on the tarmac, that costs have to be loaded on to the other operators that were being operated by the airlines,” he continued.

"#Vaccine manufacturers are looking into other modes of transports including the the ocean as they also have to consider the #cost along with #speed and #efficiency of the supply chain," says Alan Fernandes, Consultant, #Zentiva.#WEBINAR #LogisticsLiftsLife #Covid19 #logistics pic.twitter.com/GksUabXNdj

— ITLN Live (@ITLNLive) June 25, 2020

He was speaking during a webinar organized by the Indian Transport & Logistics News on the topic ‘Covid-19 response: Building resilient supply chains for vaccine delivery on Thursday, June 25, 2020.’ Speakers representing stakeholders including pharmaceutical manufacturers, air cargo carriers, temp-controlled solution providers, logistics players, freight forwarders and consultants were discussing how logistics will handle once the vaccine is ready.

Yashpal Sharma, managing director, Skyways Group, said "When a Covid-19 vaccine will come out, cost and capacity will pose a great challenge. We have already created a separate division in our company to deal with that sort of demand surge and in whatever mode they want to transport."

Huned Gandhi, MD Air & Sea Logistics Indian Subcontinent, Dachser, said "Covid-19 has prepared us to deal with any extreme situation and demand. Once vaccine for a pandemic is out we could swiftly move them to almost anywhere with this experience."