The Santiago, Chile-headquartered freight carrier has successfully been recertified by IATA’s Center of Excellence for Independent Validators in Pharmaceutical Logistics (CEIV Pharma) at its Miami hub. Back in 2017, LATAM Cargo was the first carrier in the Americas to ever achieve this certification. With its renewal, the airline reaffirms its commitment to maintaining high operational and ground handling standards when transporting this sensitive, often lifesaving, time critical product.
The renewed CEIV certification of LATAM Cargo doubly benefits the carrier’s team: Firstly, it means that staff have succeeded to meet the program’s high requirements based on demanding IATA specifications – from 2017 to date. Secondly, it sends a strong signal to the outside world, i.e. to the market, indirectly reflecting core achievements such as: consistency, product quality, and professionalism. These aspects were proudly pronounced by Diego Garcia, COO LATAM Cargo Chile, while announcing the recognition: “This recertification is not just about our achievements, but it underscores the spirit of collaboration that defines LATAM Cargo, solidifying our position as trusted leaders in pharmaceutical transportation in the Latin American region. This reaffirmed commitment aims to satisfy our clients better, ensuring that their needs are met with the highest standards of safety and reliability.”
Outstanding assessment results
The executive went on to say that the assessment was concluded with 100% compliance and zero findings. It validated the carrier’s approach to effectiveness of its quality management systems.
The freight division of the airline has made significant investments in quality control and continuous improvement by closely monitoring the product’s cold chain processes using its own monitoring devices. By harnessing this data, the carrier has been able to identify weak points in the cold chain and implement corrective actions and best practices to ensure the integrity and safety of pharmaceutical shipments. This has allowed LATAM Group to also expand its pharma network by 45% and to more than triple the transportation of pharmaceuticals that require a cold chain versus shipments flown in pre Covid times.
Vital role
In general terms, air cargo plays a vital role for both exports and imports for many industries in Latin America, especially since other modes of transport often are not viable alternatives, reminded Peter Cerda, IATA’s Regional Vice President The Americas. Pharmaceuticals in particular “rely on air transport for speed, consistency, and efficiency in ensuring that these high-value, time-sensitive, temperature-controlled products reach their destination safe and sound. It is wonderful to see LATAM Cargo’s CEIV Pharma’s recertification as it demonstrates the industry’s commitment to offering safe and secure air cargo transportation.”
IATA’s CEIV Pharma Certification addresses the industry’s need for more safety, security, compliance, and efficiency, through a globally consistent and recognized pharmaceutical-product handling certification.
An IATA success model
The CEIV program was initiated by IATA to eliminate costly sources of error, to introduce and ensure comparable quality standards in both handling and physical transport of pharmaceuticals, and to raise awareness among airline staff, freight forwarders and ground handling agents to pay utmost care to this temperature sensitive product family. Meanwhile, dozens of airlines have obtained CEIV certification along with forwarding agents and warehouse operators. It has developed into an IATA-initiated industrial success model.
