The outbreak of diphtheria in Venezuela which began in 2016 now exceeds 1600 documented cases across 22 states, according to a report by the World Health Organisation and Pan American Health Organisation.
IAG Cargo is playing an important role in ensuring essential vaccines are delivered to the country, completing a single shipment of over 5.3 tonnes of the medicine from India to Venezuela this week, in partnership with Indian biopharmaceutical company, Biological E.
Jez Palmer, Global Product Manager for Constant Climate at IAG Cargo commented. “We ship medicine across 90 countries 24/7, helping control the spread of infectious diseases across the globe. We take the responsibility of shipping life-saving medication very seriously – our dedicated ‘Constant Climate’ product team ensure that vaccines arrive promptly and securely ready to be administered as necessary.”
IAG has been focussing its efforts on it pharmaceuticals offering in recent years, with the construction of a new Constant Climate centre in Madrid, including dedicated perishables handling space, and a new Premia freight facility in London, twice the size of the original facility, under construction. Steelwork is almost complete and the installation of a new material handling system is now in progress.
“In July, we launched our new Critical Service Centre, a customer service team dedicated to our highest priority product, Critical,” said IAG Cargo CEO, Lynne Embleton. “The team of emergency solution experts monitor, advise and implement the shipment journey for our customers. We have taken almost 2,500 bookings of our Critical product in the first half of 2018 alone.”
Financial results
Earlier this month, IAG Cargo released its second-quarter results, posting commercial revenues of €281m between April 1 and June 30, 2018: an increase of 9.6% compared to the same period in 2017. Overall yield for the quarter was up 10% at constant exchange. FTK volumes were down 0.4%, whilst capacity grew by 3.3%.