United Airlines Holdings Inc. began operating charter flights on Friday to drop doses of Pfizer Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine for rapid distribution if the vaccines are approved by regulators, according to people familiar with the matter.
The initial flights are a link in a global supply chain that is being put together to address the logistical challenge of distributing Covid-19 vaccines. Pfizer has been laying the groundwork to move quickly if it gets approval from the Food and Drug Administration and other regulators around the world.
Pfizer’s distribution plan also includes refrigerated storage sites at the pharmaceuticals final assembly centers in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Puurs, Belgium, and expansion of storage capacity at distribution sites in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. And in Karlsruhe, Germany, plus dozens of cargo flights and hundreds of truck trips every day.
Pfizer declined to comment on United’s role in the plan.
United plans to fly chartered cargo flights between Brussels International Airport and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to support vaccine distribution, according to a Nov. 24 letter from the Federal Aviation Administration seen by The Wall Street Journal.
The FAA said in a statement Friday that it was supporting the “first mass air shipment of a vaccine” and is working with airlines to safely transport Covid-19 vaccines.
United had requested permission to carry more dry ice than is normally allowed on flights to maintain the extremely low temperatures necessary to prevent Pfizer’s vaccine from spoiling. The FAA said it would allow United to carry 15,000 pounds of dry ice per flight, five times what is normally allowed. Regulators restrict the amount of dry ice that can be carried on passenger planes because they generally lack the equipment to monitor and mitigate any carbon dioxide leaks.
Pfizer designed suitcase-size boxes packed with dry ice to keep vaccine doses cool, avoiding the larger temperature-controlling containers used in shipping, giving it more flexibility to ship vaccines faster.
Last week, Pfizer applied for US authorization for the emergency use of the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with BioNTech SE from Germany. The FDA has scheduled a meeting for Dec. 10 of an external advisory panel to help review the evidence behind Pfizer’s application and vote on whether to recommend that the vaccine be approved for wide use in the US. FDA could make that determination soon after the advisory panel votes, setting the potential for distribution to begin in mid-December.
Unlike traditional vaccine launches, Pfizer plans to bypass distribution wholesalers, including McKesson Corp., which has been chosen by the US government to distribute other Covid-19 vaccines through the federal “Operation Warp” program. Speed ”.
Moderna Inc. has said it expects to apply for FDA clearance for its Covid-19 vaccine in early December. If approved by the FDA in December, officials are expected to have enough doses of both vaccines to immunize about 20 million Americans.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been in discussions with state immunization officials to identify sites in each state where doses of vaccines can be stored while awaiting FDA approval.
Other cargo and passenger airlines are also preparing for the global push to get vaccines to the public quickly. American Airlines Group Inc. said it has been conducting test flights from Miami to South America to test thermal packaging and operational processes for shipping vaccines.
FedEx Corp. and DHL International GmBH have introduced temperature monitoring systems to track future vaccine shipments. United Parcel Service Inc. and Deutsche Lufthansa AG are building “freezer farms” combining many refrigerators at their airports to store vaccines in transit.
This story was posted from a cable agency feed with no text changes.
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