Vienna Airport sees pharma volumes take off

Vienna Airport Pharma Handing Centre saw its volumes increase rapidly last year as ocean shipping issues and an increasingly global pharma industry helped propel demand.

The pharma facility registered a 64% year-on-year increase in pharma volumes to 3,600 tons last year, with products handled including biotech and other temperature-sensitive goods.

The airport said that compared with pre-Covid times (2019), its pharma volumes had increased by 173% as the pandemic fuelled demand.

Also boosting demand was uncertainties in international sea traffic and the ongoing internationalisation of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, which is driving the need to safely transport time-sensitive and fragile goods by aircraft.

Michael Zach, vice president sales, finance & cargo, ground handling & cargo operations at Vienna International Airport, said: “The repeated record tonnage of the Vienna Airport Pharma Handling Center shows that Vienna Airport is an indispensable and leading pharmaceutical hub for Central and Eastern Europe.

“At the same time, this underlines the high quality of handling at the VPHC. Here we provide the increasingly internationally active pharma sector with important and, above all, safe access to the often life-saving cold chains.”

The facility is GDP certified and has two cold storage facilities offering warehousing for temperatures ranging from 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (150 sq m) and 15 to 25 degrees Celsius (1,600 sq m).

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