Air Cargo Specialist Opens Pharma Freight Centre on Home Turf

FRANCE – This month sees Worldwide Flight Services (WFS), which claims the title of the world's largest air cargo handler, open its new €10 million Pharma Centre in its home town of Paris. The company already operates its range of services for airline and freight forwarding customers from the chosen venue of Charles de Gaulle airport. The investment figure quoted also includes equipment and supplies for the next decade.

The Pharma Centre offers both landside and airside acceptance capabilities and will be fully GDP compliant. It will also become IATA CEIV Pharma certified, as part of an initiative launched by Group ADP within the cargo community at Paris-CDG Airport, to fully support WFS’ dedicated temperature-controlled service to maintain strict control of the distribution chain, therefore protecting the quality and integrity of healthcare and life science products.

The 2,400 m² dedicated space, located in the heart of CDG airport’s cargo area, has its own docks and manoeuvring area for the loading and unloading of temperature-controlled pharmaceutical shipments. It will provide dedicated space for a variety of loose cargo storage in both ambient and cold and frozen rooms in a temperature range from -20°C to +25°C.

A new warehouse management system (WMS) supports the use of barcode scanning for real-time storage capacity monitoring and management. This will ensure constant tracking of shipments from the Pharma Centre to and from aircraft with time and date statements available on demand. A temperature monitoring solution with a Cloud platform will collect temperature and humidity data in real-time via sensors and enable this information to be accessed on mobile devices.

As part of WFS’ global safety and security programme, the controlled-access Pharma Centre is also equipped with modern screening, CCTV control and alarm systems, monitored 24/7 by its Security Operational Centre. The facility also reflects the company’s environmental commitment with its investment in an all-electric fleet of forklifts and pallet trucks as well as a robust plastic and wood waste recycling programme.

The award-winning WFS Academy has been recognised by IATA as one of the world’s top 10 aviation training providers and staff are IATA CEIV trained and possess a solid knowledge of time and temperature-sensitive healthcare and pharmaceutical products. Hugo Rodrigues, Vice President Cargo France at WFS, commented:

“Pharmaceuticals continue to be one of the fastest-growing air cargo products and our airline customers have responded to this opportunity with dedicated products and services to meet this demand. WFS also has a vital role to play in helping our customers deliver the quality of service they have promised and in ensuring we consistently perform to the high standards required for sensitive, temperature-controlled cargoes to protect their integrity throughout the cool chain.

”At a major air cargo gateway like Paris CDG, we believe it is incumbent on ground handlers to invest in the right equipment to handle pharma products. Once again, this demonstrates WFS’ willingness to invest in new, state-of-the-art facilities when we see opportunities to benefit our customers and our own business.”