By Jennifer Chang

The aviation cold chain logistics market has been strong In recent years. The demand for temperature-sensitive materials in the consumer market is growing. On the other hand, with the global advancement of the new crown vaccination work, the demand for vaccine transportation has surged, resulting in an expanding market for aviation cold chain logistics. Some fresh and perishable goods, biological preparations, medical supplies, and precision instruments, etc., which are related to the safety of consumers' consumption and use, are in urgent need of air cold chain transportation. The complete transportation of aviation cold chain logistics requires the cooperation of airlines, airports, freight forwarders, ground transportation, customs and inspection and quarantine agencies to ensure that all links of aviation cold chain logistics are closely connected and continuously linked.

Aviation cold chain logistics includes cold chain ground transportation, cold chain air transportation, cold chain warehousing and cold chain packaging, etc. It is an "aristocratic" mode of transportation. The aviation cold chain is based on air transportation, and the use of airworthy facilities and equipment can ensure that the temperature-sensitive material is in the required temperature environment during transportation. Unit load device is  mainly  passive temperature-controlled ULD and active temperature-controlled ULD. Passive Temperature Controlled ULD: It is a thermal isolation unit that uses a cooling medium (such as wet ice, gel ice, dry ice or liquid gas, etc.) to control the temperature.  Active Temperature Controlled ULD: It is a refrigeration or heating system with thermal insulation and cooling medium, and with mechanical or electronic, which can automatically measure the temperature in the box and distribute the cooling energy evenly to the containers around the goods in a controlled manner. The refrigerated truck used in the cold chain logistics transportation has a refrigerated transportation vehicle positioning management system. The system is an open positioning supervision platform integrating GPS/temperature detection technology, electronic map and wireless transmission technology. Realize the effective tracking and positioning management of refrigerated trucks, and transmit the positioning information in real time. It is often used to transport frozen food (frozen truck), dairy products (dairy truck), vegetables and fruits (fresh goods truck), vaccine drugs (vaccine truck), etc. Furthermore, in the aviation cold chain logistics transportation, the essential infrastructure equipment is the temperature-controlled warehouse. Temperature-controlled warehouses generally provide three temperature zones: freezing, refrigerating, and room temperature, including flexible partitions, movable walls for accurate temperature control, and real-time temperature and humidity monitoring systems. 

The earliest aviation cold chain logistics can be traced back to 1928. At that time, KLM pioneered the cold chain logistics of aviation by airlifting 750,000 tons of flowers, fruits and vegetables to London. In 1969, the United States launched the world's first refrigerated container, making standardized transportation possible, and aviation cold chain logistics has flourished since then. At present, the main business covers flowers, fruits and vegetables, medicine and fresh food e-commerce. Especially pharmaceutical circulation is an important application field of aviation cold chain logistics. Especially during the epidemic prevention and control period, the transportation of vaccines and other medical materials has become the focus of attention from all walks of life. It can be seen that, driven by favorable factors such as the rise of social consumption and the acceleration of urbanization, relying on the current trillion-scale fresh food and pharmaceutical markets, aviation cold chain logistics is entering a fast-rising channel from the initial stage, and the future market space is huge.

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