Japanese airline to offer temperature-controlled cargo

NIPPON Cargo Airlines has signed a global lease agreement with Envirotainer for active temperature-controlled air cargo containers.

The agreement supports the airline’s new NCA Pharmacare product for the transportation of high-value pharmaceutical products. This is the first time an airline in Japan has developed a specific product based on Envirotainer containers.

The airline has been trialling the service for 12 months using Envirotainer’s RKN e1, RKN t2, RAP t2 and CLD t2 containers.

However, Kuniaki Inaoka, senior manager of the Cargo Business Division of NCA, says the development of a long-term partnership is about more than just containers.

“Our decision to work with Envirotainer is also based on its network of stations, handling procedures, quality and accreditation programmes and ability to increase our knowledge in the carriage of high value, sensitive life science products,” he said.

Niklas Lönnkvist, Envirotainer’s director of healthcare, Asia Pacific and Middle East, added: “There is a considerable opportunity in Japan for the development of air cargo transportation of pharma in active containers as the majority of products are still transported using passive insulated boxes or no special packaging.”