Turkish Cargo gains pharma certification

Turkish Cargo has become the latest airline to be awarded IATA’s Center of Excellence for Independent Validators (CEIV) certificate for its pharmaceutical operations.
The airline was awarded the CEIV certificate after meeting IATA’s CEIV standards.
Turkish Cargo has a storage area totalling 3,000sq m and covering four different temperature ranges (from -20 °C to +25 °C) in a total indoor area of 43,000sq m.
“The healthcare products are stored in a dedicated area of 1,030sq m,” the airline said. “All storage and handling processes are carried out as specified in the relevant regulations.
“Temperatures are monitored with a telemetry system, and all cargo movements are tracked with COMIS, Turkish Cargo’s IT software in real time. For the special cargo operations, a dedicated team ensures smooth continuation of the process.”
Turkish Cargo said it hoped the certification would not only help to increase its pharmaceutical marketshare, but showed that it was aware of the importance of pharma shipments to human health, considers the producers’ concerns, and that it adopts this approach in all the processes involved in such shipments.
“All personnel are made aware of the severity and importance of the possible problems that could occur,” the airline added.
“During the transportation of consignments that are extremely important for health and extremely temperature- and time-critical, such as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, biotechnological products, diagnostic samples, precision healthcare devices, organs, tissues, etc., Turkish Cargo acts extremely cautiously to preserve the integrity of the cold chain and the products, and gives the utmost priority to this issue.”
Turkish Cargo said in order to achieve the IATA CEIV Pharma certificate, its operations needed to meet the requirements of the international Good Distribution Practice guides, IATA Perishable Cargo Regulations Section 17 and Temperature Control Regulations.