All set to participate in the largest humanitarian effort of bringing hope
AirAsia Philippines is indeed getting ready to help airlift Covid-19 vaccines to different parts of the country. AirAsia recently secured an approval from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) to transport these vaccines. They will be packed in dry ice. The transportation of vaccines is the biggest humanitarian effort of the airlines to bring hope.
The Philippines is nearing the 1-million mark in terms of confirmed Covid-19 cases.
According to AirAsia, the authorization from CAAP came just in time for the expected arrival of the bulk of vaccines from Sinovac BioTech, Gamaleya Institute and Pfizer-BioNTech in the coming weeks and months.
More vaccines set to arrive
The country is set to receive more vaccines within the coming weeks and months. Set to arrive are 1,000,000 more doses of CoronaVac, 480,000 doses of Sputnik V, 195,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines and 20,000 doses of Gamaleya towards the end of April. Moderna will be delivering 13,000,000 vaccines sometime June or July.
Government officials and agencies are already preparing for a “vaccine surge.” This is actually good news as this would help put the spread of the virus under control. As such, airlines are playing a major role in the speedy distribution of these important vaccines. We hope herd immunity is achieved soon
Manila, Cebu, and Davao this week
AirAsia is looking to fly these vaccines from Manila to Cebu and Davao within this week. Other routes like Clark, Zamboanga, Bohol, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, General Santos, and Puerto Princess shall follow
We have actively participated in different humanitarian projects in the past through a series of humanitarian flights to bring the much-needed help especially in the provinces which are not yet part of the AirAsia route network. Bringing the vaccines to the farthest localities in the provinces isn’t much of a challenge for us. Our business model used to be purely air transport. The pandemic made us rethink and reassess areas that are essential. You can be assured that revitalizing the air transportation sector is AirAsia’s commitment to the Filipino people. Safety First” is rooted in AirAsia’s DNA. Our personnel were subjected to intense technical training, and adequate preparations were also laid out to make sure the human and engineering components of vaccine handling are met, and of the highest standards.”
Richy Isla, AirASsia Philippines CEO
In talks with different local government units
AirAsia is already in talks with different LGUs in their route network to efficiently map out the deliveries.
Philippine air travel is suffering a lot due to the pandemic and crisis. The Philippines was placed once again under the strictest quarantine status last March due to a huge surge. The surge saw an average of 10,000 daily new covid-19 cases but this seems to already be going down.
We all hope for the safe and speedy delivery of this Covid-19 vaccines. With nearly 1 million confirmed covid-19 cases cases as of this writing, the airlifting of vaccines are very important. They help speed up the distribution.
We also hope that more airlines will take part in this pandemic.
