American Airlines Cargo opens new, expanded London pharma room

Jun 30, 2017: As part of American’s commitment to support the expansion of its healthcare and pharmaceutical services, American Airlines Cargo has announced the opening of a new Controlled Room Temperature (CRT) facility at its London Heathrow (LHR) cargo center. The new room is 1,700 square feet (160 square meters) and can accommodate up to 16 times more standard euro skid pallets at one time than the previous room. Thus it is providing airline customers with greater capacity when it comes to moving temperature-sensitive healthcare freight to and from LHR.

Both inbound and outbound logistics companies supporting American's ExpediteTC service will utilize the new CRT room. It is a fully monitored and alarmed facility, where the standard operating temperature will be set to maintain passive products at +59°F to +77°F (+15°C to +25°C). Euro Scan software is used to monitor precise temperatures within the facility, which will provide real-time information to the American operations team, and will be used for reporting purposes.

"This is a tremendous service enhancement for our European customers," says Andy Cornwell, regional sales manager for northern Europe. "This new, far larger facility, can meet their needs even more effectively now and in the future. And this will be further improved when our COL +2°C to +8°C (+35°F to +46°F) storage for pharma products comes on stream later this summer.”

The newly enlarged CRT room will be of significant value to customers moving specialist pharma traffic between Europe and the US. As the second largest carrier from LHR across the Atlantic, American offers up to 20 daily departures to the United States, including two daily flights between LHR and Philadelphia (PHL), home to American’s industry leading 25,000 square-foot pharmaceutical facility.