Airline passenger travel is down because of the coronavirus pandemic, but industry leaders say cargo flights will become busier once a COVID-19 vaccine is developed and released.
“It will be a logistical challenge that the world has not seen before,” DHL Global Forwarding CEO David Goldberg said.
DHL is already discussing how they will handle transporting the vaccine. According to DHL, 125,000 to 140,000 doses of the vaccine will fit onto one Boeing 747, Goldberg said.
8,000 airplanes will be needed to ship 1 billion doses. 42 vaccines are undergoing clinical trials around the world. It’s still not known which state, or country, the approved vaccines will ultimately come from.
“I think there has never been a pandemic in our lifetime and there has never been one vaccine that is needed by the whole world in one single time,” Goldberg said.