For air cargo terminals, handling of Covid-19 vaccines was a major challenge in the last 15 months. However, the ‘most sensitive’ cargo was handled with precision and the cargo delivered as per their commitment to consignees without any major issues, according to supply chain experts at a seminar.

The challenges included delayed flights, missed connections, and use of Air Force or Navy for last mile delivery. However, the challenges were all met, and deliveries were made as per the commitment, said Keku Bomi Gazder, CEO, AAI Cargo Logistics and Allied Services Company Ltd.

Major steps

Four major steps were taken to tackle the challenges posed by the pandemic — business re-engineering, process simplification, lifestyle disruption and identifying and mitigating risks, he said at a discussion on ‘The Unbroken Cold Chain, A Thought Leadership Event Series’, an annual conference, hosted by Agility Logistics on the topic overcoming challenges in the Covid-19 supply chain in India.

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Satish Lakkaraju, Chief Commercial Officer, Agility India, moderated the discussion.

Ravi Prakash Mathur, Vice-President, Supply Chain, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, said “A very good platform (CoWin) has been created so much that we are now talking about making it open source and sharing with other people. However, it would be good if we could integrate this app all the way up to the suppliers to help a person get a clarity on supply forecast or visibility. There should be an end-to-end integrated platform,” he said.

Managing ‘huge volume’

According to Saurabh Kumar, CEO, GMR Cargo Hyderabad, in the first month of handling the vaccine, it was all about the huge volume. However, as months passed focus turned to improving efficiency and exchange of data. Then came a slew of technology offerings like integrated temperature monitoring systems; ‘new age’ cool box that meets the Indian requirement, he said.

“At the start, none of us had any clue on the temperature tolerance of the shipment we are going to handle for how many hours. That was the level of uncertainty. Even for packaging, we used to think about the standard format, and plan accordingly. Those were fundamental learnings we all had. But now, we are talking about a new level of technology where we are trying to make it as part of usual business operations giving visibility in terms of status of shipment and temperature,” he said.

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Vijay Sharma, Head Cargo, Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd, the handling of the vaccine can be a case study for disaster management and should be taught for management engineering students. The Sputnik vaccine at Delhi airport was out for delivery in 20 minutes — right from landing at the airport to delivery. This was an extraordinary effort of handling an international cargo, he said.

The government should recognise the air cargo supply chain as front-line workers and on par with doctors, said Tushar Jani, Group Chairman, Cargo Service Centre India Pvt Ltd. “If we had not cleared the goods with the customs, the doctors would not have administered the medicines, or the instruments used for the patients. We were stopped on the train,” he said.

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“I hope the government classifies air cargo workers as the most essential, as good as municipal, sewage or electrical workers. If there was no air cargo supply chain in the world, imagine what the world would have gone through. We would have lost millions of lives. That kind of importance should be given to air cargo employees,” he said.

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