Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, Mumbai will today handle 28,44,000 doses of Covishield vaccines in 237 boxes with 7,168 kilograms weight destined to 22 different domestic destinations in India.

The airport started its Covid-19 vaccine transportation today at 5:20 AM with GoAir carrying 2 boxes of the vaccine to Goa followed by the shipment to Rajkot at 6:00 AM through SpiceJet carrying 7 boxes. The SOPs implemented by the airport in anticipation of the vaccine distribution saw the terminal register a cargo processing time of just 7 minutes, right from goods acceptance to dispatch at the ramp.

India gave the emergency approval of to Covid-19 vaccines earlier and plans to start the vaccination programme from January 16, 2021. On Tuesday (Jan 12), 56 lakh doses of Covishield vaccines, developed by AstraZeneca & Oxford University and manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII), were transported from Pune to 13 destinations across the country.

Kool-Ex to serve destinations which Pune can't

The refrigerated trucks of cool chain solution provider Kool-Ex also went to Mumbai International Airport to serve destinations which Pune can't.

The flights planned are to Goa, Bagdogra, Rajkot, Ranchi, Imphal, Agartala, Cochin, Bhopal, Kanpur, Jammu, Srinagar, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Gorakhpur, Raipur, Dehradun, Varanasi, Indore, Trivandrum and Jabalpur through SpiceJet, IndiGo, GoAir and Vistara. Of these, Raipur and Cochin emerged as the destinations with the largest vaccine deliveries of 27 and 25 boxes respectively.

“As the first airport in India and third in Asia to achieve the IATA CEIV certification as well as being the only Indian airport in a strategic partnership with Pharma.Aero, CSMIA is well-positioned to support, maintain and optimize pharma-dedicated corridors globally,” noted a release.

Preparations at Mumbai Airport
Being a pharma hub, CSMIA is a veteran in transporting vaccine across the world and has placed a well-defined process for the faster turnaround of Covid-19 vaccine EXIM and transshipment movements. The airport has deployed a dedicated Covid-task force in order to reduce dwell time and facilitate advanced planning and collaboration between the airport and all stakeholders in this process - the airline customers, supply chain partners, regulatory and governmental bodies, and vaccine distributors. It has also initiated a full-time 24x7 Customer Service Cell for Covid-19 vaccine EXIM consignments, in order to address customer queries, pre-alerts and status updates.

Moreover, the airport is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities such as Asia's largest temperature-controlled Export Pharma Excellence Centre and Pharma-dedicated Import Cold Zone, a first-of-its-kind - 'Cooltainer' facility and the largest hub for Envirotainer movements with over 60 power outlets for processing pharma active containers. Additionally, it has an exclusive station dealing with storage and maintenance of both e-type, and t-type active containers that help facilitate the seamless distribution of vaccines across India.