“We’re expecting the first, limited transports at the end of October,” says Nathan De Valck, responsible for air freight activities at Brussels Airport. “When transporting vaccines by air, speed and constant temperature conditions are crucial. Our main asset at Brussels Airport is that we have 30,000 square meters of temperature-controlled pharmaceutical warehouses, the most of any European airport. Our expertise and experience also contribute to our top-notch position in this field: we transport tens of thousands of tons of vaccines every year.”

As such, Brussels Airport shares in the success of Flanders’ leading pharma cluster, which includes Europe’s first-ever vaccinopolis and branches of Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, two pharma giants who are developing candidate COVID-19 vaccines. Additionally, no less than a quarter of the 100 logistics service providers at Brussels Airport specialize in handling pharmaceuticals.

“What’s more,” De Valck adds, “we are the first airport to have developed a large fleet of Airside Pharma Transporters. These allow us to safely transport vaccines across the airport tarmac in a temperature-controlled way, from the refrigerated warehouses to the airplane. They run on batteries and are equipped with solar panels and cooling units. Sensors monitor the temperature in real time. If something goes wrong, an alarm will go off. This distinct offering sets us apart from other airports.”

In the meantime, various logistics services providers specializing in pharma transport at Brussels Airport are prepping themselves, too. One of them is Kuehne+Nagel, which confirms that discussions with vaccine manufacturers are ongoing. “We can’t give any names yet,” says Geert Torfs, Air Logistics Director Belux at Kuehne+Nagel. “But we expect the first COVID-19 vaccine transports around the turn of the year. A large part will be exported from Belgium.”

Kuehne+Nagel has been operating from a new distribution hub at Brucargo, the freight area of Brussels Airport, since June 2020. Of the building’s 15,000 square meters of temperature-controlled warehouses, the Swiss logistics group uses 6,000 square meters for medicines and vaccines. Deploying specialized trucks and its highly specialized global logistics network, Kuehne+Nagel is able to guarantee high-quality cold chain transport of vaccines to vaccination centers.

But Kuehne+Nagel is far from the only company to have recently invested and added to the Flanders’ pharmaceutical logistics expertise. In September 2020, ODTH First Class Logistics kicked off the construction of a new certified and refrigerated pharma warehouse next to the container terminal on the Brussels–Scheldt Maritime Canal in Willebroek. “In recent years, we have seen strong growth in our pharma activities,” explains Veroniek De Mulder, CEO of ODTH. “Following an initial expansion in 2017, it’s now time to further develop our refrigerated activities. The new warehouse will be operational at the beginning of April 2021.”