Ethiopian Airlines, the multi-award winning and largest airline in Africa, announced that it has operated COVID-19 vaccine delivery flights from Mumbai to Addis Ababa and from Beijing to Brazzaville. Ethiopian transported the first batch of coronavirus vaccines from Mumbai to Addis Ababa on 06 March 2021. The airline continued to play its prominent role in the vaccine distribution and transported the vaccines from Beijing to Brazzaville via Addis Ababa on 10 March 2021.

Commenting on the operation of the vaccine delivery flights, Mr. Tewolde GebreMariam, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines remarked, “We are glad that we have launched the delivery of our mission-critical service with the distribution of much-anticipated COVID-19 vaccine. We will be repeating the remarkable and globally recognized success in leading the fast delivery of PPE few months ago with similar delivery speed, professional handling and maintaining the cool chain during the global vaccine distribution. We have made enough preparations to transport the vaccines across the world.”

Ethiopian Cargo & Logistics Services, the cargo unit of Ethiopian Airlines Group, was instrumental in facilitating the flow of medical supplies including PPE across the globe in support of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic by deploying its state-of-the-art cargo terminal, which is the largest in Africa with annual capacity of around one million tons and compartmentalized temperature controlled cold storage facilities. 

Equipped with different climate chambers ranging between -23OC to 25OC covering an area of 54,000m2, dedicated cool dollies, dedicated pharma team, lease/handling of Envirotainer & DoKaSCH-TS active containers, real-time temperature monitoring system and fully temperature controlled operation, the Pharma Wing is best suited for handling of pharmaceuticals and all types medical supplies. Additionally, leveraging the naturally air-conditioned weather of its home base Addis Ababa, Ethiopian guarantees safe and seamless cool chain logistics for handling temperature sensitive healthcare products.  

Ethiopian is a major cargo partners of WHO, WFP, donor governments and philanthropists in facilitating the flow of essential medical supplies owing to the massive cargo facility including Pharma Wing, large and dedicated freighters and well trained manpower.