News / Liners ready to snap up more cool chain traffic as shippers switch from air

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Reducing air transport’s emissions is a pivotal decarbonisation strategy for pharma shippers, a Maersk study has claimed.   

According to the Global Logistics Emissions Council (GLEC), emissions intensity is 150 times larger for air freight than ocean, at 1,060 per tonne-km versus 6 per tonne-km.  

“This suggested a shift in logistics strategy – from air freight to the lower-emission lanes of ocean transportation,” said Maersk. 

The Danish carrier today released details of a large pharmaceutical company that had reduced its dependance on air freight through using Maersk’s reefer network and cool chain visibility platform, Captain Peter.  

“Switching from air to sea freight has not just lowered costs dramatically, but it’s also made a significant cut in the customer’s greenhouse gas footprint,” it claimed.  

Maersk’s head of pharma and healthcare, Gaetan Van Exem, said: “We are very pleased that leading pharmaceutical companies see the benefits in converting from air to sea.” 

The carrier, however, highlighted that air freight “offers a better speed to market” than ocean shipping and added: “In an era where quality healthcare is paramount, especially with an ageing global population, the pharmaceutical sector faces intense global competition… Traditionally reliant on intermediaries, pharmaceutical freight predominantly relies on air transportation. 

“However, with sustainability in sharp focus, organisations are compelled to explore low GHG emission alternatives.” 

Indeed, Maersk said, the pharmaceutical company aimed to ship 50% of its cargo by ocean by 2050.  

And ocean carriers are poised and ready to take air cargo’s share of temperature-controlled shipments, should the market demand. Alphaliner reported today that reefer capacity was on the rise as ocean carriers continued to grow their fleets.  

MSC boasts the highest capacity for transporting temperature-controlled containers, with 815 vessels having a combined total of 583,700 reefer plugs, which Alpahliner said represented a 17.6% year-on-year increase for the line. 

But it also reported that ONE had exceeded MSC’s increase in reefer capacity, recording 23.1% growth in the number of reefer plugs. 

However, Alphaliner notes that the ranking of the top ten carriers by reefer plugs generally coincides with the ranking of total fleet capacity, but found that European carriers had an overall larger proportion of their capacity available for reefer cargo. 

HMM is the only carrier with less reefer capacity than a year ago, down 1.3%, but the line had reduced its overall fleet capacity by 2.4%.