How DFW became a ‘cold chain’ cargo airport, just before the COVID vaccine was needed
The COVID pandemic has helped many Americans understand the importance of the “cold chain” — the ability to move and closely track goods such as vaccines around the world while keeping them stored in precise, often extremely cold temperatures.
But what many North Texans may not fully understand is the growing importance of DFW Airport’s role in the movement of time- and temperature-sensitive goods.
The movement of the COVID vaccines is just a small part of the story.
Today, large amounts of the COVID vaccines made by both Pfizer and Moderna are likely moving in and out of DFW Airport property as they’re shipped coast to coast by carriers such as FedEx and UPS — although those companies have declined to confirm the precise whereabouts of those vaccine shipments.
“FedEx is proud to be delivering COVID-19 vaccines to communities across the United States,” FedEx spokeswoman Davina Cole said in an email. “The safety and security of our team members and these critical shipments is our top priority, so we are unable to confirm details about individual shipments.”
Both companies also operate at Fort Worth’s Alliance Airport, which is managed by Hillwood Properties and leases space to numerous companies that specialize in logistics and freight movement.
DFW Airport’s efforts to become a more important component of the world’s temperature-controlled shipping industry actually dates back several years before the pandemic.
In 2016, the airport’s board of directors agreed to begin placing more of an emphasis on two types of cargo shipping — perishables, and e-commerce packages. Although DFW Airport is known for its enormous volume of passenger flights and is perennially among the top 10 busiest airports in the world, its role in cargo shipments has often been overlooked.
More than half of DFW Airport’s $37 billion economic impact in the North Texas region comes from cargo, not passenger service, officials said. DFW’s cargo tonnage has grown more than 45 percent in the last 10 years — with more than 911,000 U.S. tons of freight handled in 2018 alone.
To improve DFW Airport’s ability to handle perishable goods — not just pharmaceuticals, but also other medical and biological material, as well as produce, flowers and other plant life that often must be temperature-controlled — the airport’s board invested about $1.5 million and created a partnership with Dubai-based company Dnata to handle a variety of types of heat-sensitive freight.
Dnata operates out of a 37,000-square-foot warehouse on the west side of the airfield. The facility operates around the clock, with two chambers dedicated to pharmaceuticals, three multi-temperature zones and a 15,000-square-foot area for refrigeration.
There’s also a refrigerated dock with truck doors, dry cargo space to handle a variety of customer needs and a certified customs screening facility for imports and exports.
Some of the $1.5 million helped pay for chillers that allow the simultaneous storage of cargo at various temperatures within the same facility. The airport also installed industrial-size security equipment that allows these sensitive shipments to be inspected and processed quickly, usually without opening the containers.
“That got us into the perishable game in a big way,” John Ackerman, DFW executive vice president of global strategy and development, said in an interview. “It was pretty well-known that pharma and e-commerce was growing fast, but not everybody can take advantage of that like we can.”
In 2019, DFW Airport was recognized by the International Air Transport Association for creating a system that ensures cold freight is properly handled from the time the goods enter the aviation freight network until they reach their destination. DFW was among the first airports to receive certification from the association’s Center of Excellence for Independent Validators, which puts airport cargo handlers through a rigorous series of tests to ensure the goods are handled properly.
The certification ensures that cargo remains at its required temperature not only in the belly of an aircraft and inside DFW Airport’s cold pharmaceutial chambers but also at the loading docks and inside the trucks that will carry the goods on their final miles.
Other companies joining DFW Airport in the expansion of perishable shipments include SCL Cold Chain (refrigerated trucking), B.I.G. Logistics (warehousing and distribution) and Expeditors (international freight forwarding), airport officials said.
“We applaud DFW for its commitment to building a CEIV Pharma community through which it has met the industry’s global quality standards that ensure pharma products will be handled in a safe and reliable manner,” Glyn Hughes, the association’s global head of cargo, said in a statement. “By DFW’s community obtaining CEIV Pharma certification, the number of organizations worldwide that are contributing to improve pharma handling across the aviation sector has increased, this is very positive.”
DFW’s certification is significant because the airport already benefits from its geography — accessible to every corner of the U.S. in four hours or less from its perch in the middle of the continent. It allows DFW to compete with airports more traditionally associated with cargo, including those in Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, Ackerman said.
Some South American produce shippers have started using DFW Airport for cargo that used to go to Miami, he said.
DFW Airport doesn’t expect to become the No. 1 cargo airport in the world overnight. Instead, airport officials are working on expanding their ability to handle perishable goods such as pharmaceuticals gradually — to ensure they can play as prominent a role as realistically possible in the global cold chain.
For example, many cold shipments coming from South America to Miami’s airport are the result of decades of relationships between businesses at both the shipping and receiving ends, and Ackerman doesn’t expect to change those relationships in the blink of an eye.
But DFW Airport sees tremendous growth on the horizon. Already, DFW’s expansion into the cold chain is showing results.
In 2019, 27.1 million pounds of perishables were imported and exported through DFW, a 57% increase compared to shipments in 2016. The perishables segment is growing at DFW at a compounded annual growth rate of nearly 21%, officials said.
In pharmaceuticals, the number of shipments imported and exported at DFW grew to 8.6 million pounds in 2019, up 13% from 2016. Cold pharmaceutical imports and exports at DFW Airport are growing at a rate of about 4.7% a year, officials said.
Ackerman said DFW simply wants to establish a reputation for high-quality handling of all forms of time- and temperature-sensitive cargo. Or, as he put it, “anything that needs to be kept cold, dry and dark.”
