Swissport opens its JKIA pharma shipment facility

Logistics firm Swissport has opened its newly upgraded pharmaceutical shipments facility at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi with an eye on new customers including hospitals and drug manufacturers.

Swissport said following the expansion it will offer its clients “an end-to-end cool chain” from the delivery of shipments to the Nairobi based warehouse until cargo is loaded onto the aircraft.

It said the new facility with a capacity of 250 tonnes will focus primarily on air freight activities in the region.

“The CEIV Pharma standard guarantees air freight customers the highest quality for the transport of sensitive pharmaceutical products,” said Swissport Kenya chief executive Jeroen de Clercq in a statement. Swissport, which has a global footprint of 115 warehouses, first opened its Nairobi logistics centre in 2010.

The new temperature-controlled area of the facility accounts for 13 percent of its total warehouse space of 10,400 square metres.

“The dedicated facilities have cooling units for goods which require a temperature range of -10 to -20 degrees Celsius,” the company said, adding the facility has been awarded specialised certification for pharmaceutical logistics by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Swissport’s expansion of its JKIA facilities coincides with growth of cargo traffic through the JKIA. The World Airport Traffic Report Data for 2018 released by Airports Council International (ACI) ranked JKIA second in the Fastest Growing Airports (Handling over 250,000 metric tonnes of air cargo)’ category.

JKIA handled more than 342,000 metric tonnes of air cargo in 2018.