Cargo-focused Rickenbacker International Airport is diversifying its business with the opening of the primary cold storage facility in Ohio dedicated to pharmaceuticals shipped by air transport.
While most airports typically act as landlords for corporations granted development rights, the Columbus Regional Airport Authority opted to speculate, construct and manage the pharma handling center itself while outsourcing operations through an revolutionary revenue-sharing program.
The 9,600-square-foot temperature-controlled warehouse, which resides inside an existing air cargo terminal, cost about $2 million, including a pallet-sized X-ray screening machine, Bryan Schreiber, manager of air cargo business development, told FreightWaves. A former office and warehouse space was retrofitted to create the two-zone refrigerated space (2-8 degrees and 15-25 degrees Celsius) for vaccines, therapeutics and other life-science products for which there’s increased demand. The world is totally self-contained, with no access to other tenants.
JobsOhio, the state’s economic development agency, contributed a $600,000 grant for the project, which was originally expected to open two years ago.
Rickenbacker Airport (LCK) handles some drugs shipped in lively refrigerated containers. The brand new storage room will allow the airport to expand that line of business and open up recent opportunities for airlines and freight forwarders serving the pharma sector.
“We had a number of requests from our airline and forwarding partners for correct pharma handling capabilities but no takers within the private sector to speculate in a single. If our market was to proceed to grow, we knew we wanted so as to add this capability,” Schreiber said.
The investment in health care cold storage is an element of the airport authority’s technique to construct out airfreight handling capabilities. The airport, for instance, recently built a USDA-certified animal export inspection facility.
Rickenbacker is a former Army air base with 12,000-foot runways surrounded by distribution centers for retailers akin to Eddie Bauer, Lululemon and Abercrombie & Fitch.
The airport authority decided a revenue-sharing agreement was the most effective option for a return on its investment. Alliance Ground International, a rapidly growing airport services company based in Miami that already serves the airport, will operate the pharma center.
Schreiber is marketing the power, with a deal with scheduled cargo airlines that may provide connectivity from Germany and other countries within the European Union. Several top health care corporations have visited the positioning.
“We understand these items take time, though, and we’re confident that this recent capability might be a very good long-term play for our forwarding and airline partners constructing business through Rickenbacker,” he said.
The variety of biomedical distribution, manufacturing and R&D facilities in central Ohio has grown substantially in recent times. The Columbus region imported $2.2 billion value of pharmaceuticals from a single company in Germany last 12 months and firms exported $614 million value of non-temperature-controlled medical devices, instruments and medicines to the EU by air from LCK, Schreiber said. Life sciences organizations in Ohio attracted $3.5 billion in 2021, in accordance with the Ohio Life Sciences Association.
Rickenbacker airport shouldn’t be alone feeling the results of a freight recession that has seen global air cargo demand fall greater than 10% up to now 16 months. LCK volumes tumbled 33% last 12 months from a record 338.7 million kilos in 2021 as retailers, which make up a big chunk of the airport’s end users, ordered fewer imports due to bloated inventories. LCK’s cargo volumes are down 48% year-to-date through May, in accordance with airport figures. Vietnam is the airport’s largest trading partner.
“The development of the pharma center will strengthen our market, enabling our forwarding and airline partners to learn from a healthier and more downturn-resistant mixture of air freight,” said Schreiber.
RECOMMENDED READING:
US airport agent AGI plans South America expansion
Azerbaijan cargo airline debuts at Rickenbacker airport