American Airlines looking to build

Following the introduction earlier this year of a new dedicated pharmaceutical facility in Philadelphia (US),American Airlines Cargo is considering further development of its temperature-controlled infrastructure.

Specific ideas under consideration by the US carrier, which offers both active and passive solutions through its ExpediteTC product, include developing CRT (controlled room temperature) from plus 15 to 25 degree Celsius facilities at more stations and adding some pharma-dedicated plus two to eight degree Celsius space.

Amercan’s cargo manager for cold chain strategy, Tom Grubb, stresses that all such ideas are still being evaluated and no firm investment decisions have been made. However, he confirms the organisation is looking at adding more CRT facilities in the US.

“In some of our locations such as Philadelphia, New York and Miami, the existing CRT space is already quite robust in terms of available capacity but there are other key stations where we are currently assessing whether to invest in such infrastructure. One example is Los Angeles,” Grubb states.

More generally, continues Grubb, the carrier is assessing whether to also introduce plus two to eight degree Celsius space in some locations to cater for the growing range of biotech and blood products, vaccines, genetic material and other healthcare traffic requiring that sort of tighter temperature control.

“We already have significant +2⁰C to +8⁰C capabilities across our network but they are primarily for flowers and other perishables. So we are taking a very strong look at where we need to have dedicated pharma and healthcare space. I think that is the next major area of development we will be looking at,” he explains.