The airline registered its highest volumes of pharmaceuticals in its history with 37% annual growth due to continuous investment and adding features to its product range including PharmaLife for pharmaceutical, healthcare and life science products.
Perishable volumes increased for the third consecutive year with customers using the FreshForward product for shipments of perishable fresh produce including fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy, fish, meat and flowers.
Etihad Cargo holds all four IATA CEIV certificates, which includes Pharma and Fresh.
In 2023, Etihad Cargo opened its dedicated pharma hub, which doubled cool chain storage and handling capacity.
The 3,300 square-metre facility has the latest technology and features including road feeder service loading docks with levellers, insulation and floor work for faster and more efficient loading with strict temperature controls, increased storage space and additional build-up and breakdown zones.
Since launching the pharma centre in July, volumes were up almost 40% year-on-year.
Perishable facilities were refurbished with the 3,000 square-metre temperature-controlled warehouse dedicated to perishables providing smooth transfers to the FreshForward truck fleet.
Beyond Abu Dhabi, Etihad Cargo’s PharmaLife network covers over 62 destinations and Etihad Cargo has developed over 1,330 IATA CEIV Pharma/Good Distribution Practice (GDP)-certified trade lanes.
Since launching Pharma Corridor 2.0 between Abu Dhabi and Brussels, Etihad Cargo has served shippers and forwarders through the establishment of pharma corridors between airports with cargo handling communities under the IATA CEIV Pharma programme.
In 2023, volumes transported on the corridor increased 10.3% and Etihad Cargo has shipped over 70% more pharmaceutical and life sciences cargo since the corridor’s creation.
Leonard Rodrigues, Acting Managing Director of Etihad Cargo, says, “The unique collaboration and partnerships Etihad Cargo has pioneered have allowed the carrier to offer complete transparency on the status of temperature-controlled pharmaceutical shipments, recording quality, time, temperature, potential deviations and actions. Etihad Cargo is now actively exploring further opportunities to create additional corridors between Abu Dhabi and other key markets to bring these benefits to more regions critical to the manufacture and supply of pharmaceuticals.”