Ethiopian Airlines becomes first African airline to partner with Envirotainer

March 8, 2018 : Envirotainer, the secure cold chain solutions provider for the pharmaceutical supply chain, recently signed a global Master Lease Agreement (MLA) with Ethiopian Airlines. This is the first time Envirotainer partners with an airline that is based in Africa. The partnership will greatly enhance the connectivity for pharmaceutical companies and their customers in Africa.

Fitsum Abady, MD, Ethiopian Cargo & Logistics Services, said, "We are very pleased to be the first African airline partnering with Envirotainer. In this highly lucrative market the application of active temperature controlled containers play vital role for the protection and safety of time and temperature sensitive healthcare products both onboard and on the ground throughout the supply chain. This commercial partnership with Envirotainer significantly fuels our aim on providing superior protection and seamless connectivity through our sales networks stretched across the five continents."

Commenting on the deal, Bourji Mourad, head of Global Partner Management at Envirotainer, said, "This newly signed Global Master Lease Agreement with Ethiopian Airlines is very welcomed, particularly since it is our first with an African based airline that has invested so much in newly built facilities and services for the safe handling of pharmaceutical and life sciences products."
Jörg Krings, Global Partner Manager at Envirotainer further added, "The on ground training for how to handle our Envirotainer units went really well. It's a key element to guarantee the correct process implementation."

Ethiopian Cargo & Logistics Services, one of the seven business centers of Ethiopian Airlines, with the recently inaugurated state-of –the- Art cargo terminal II together with the existing Terminal will give us a total tonnage capacity of around 1 million ton per annum which is the largest in the continent of Africa. – The new terminal fitted with enhanced cold chain facility will boost the airlines' capacity for storage and handling of temperature sensitive and life science products.
Moreover, the completion of the second phase, which adds 600,000 tones annual uplift capacity, Ethiopian Cargo and Logistics Services will have one of the world's largest cargo terminals capability equivalent to cargo terminals in Amsterdam Schiphol, Singapore Changi, or Hong Kong. This investment and the resulting massive cargo facilities along with the 6 modern B-777F fleet, 2 B-757F on service and ordered 4 B777F and 2B737F will create adequate air cargo transporting capacity for the fast growing export and import demand of the continent.