World Health Organisation hub

Liege Airport has been selected by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nation's health agency, and World Food Programme (WFP) to play a crucial role in moving critical supplies across the globe to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whilst only offering limited summer only holiday flights Liege has developed as a specialist freight airport and is now the seventh biggest cargo hub in Europe.  Serving the airport are FedEx, Air Bridge Cargo (ABC), Qatar Airways Cargo, Emirates SkyCargo, ASL Airlines Belgium (formerly TNT) and now SF Airlines of China.

During a press briefing WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus informed that the new WHO supply chain taskforce has been requested to co-ordinate and scale up the procurement and distribution of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits, lab diagnostics and oxygen to the countries that are currently fighting the COVID-19 battle. The other hubs for this initiative are located in China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malaysia, Panama, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

“To move the supplies across the world, the WFP will deploy eight 747 aircraft, eight medium-sized cargo aircraft and several smaller passenger planes to move humanitarian workers, technical staff, trainers and other personnel. The WFP estimates that it will need $280m simply to cover the cost of storing and moving supply. The costs of procuring supplies will be much greater,” he added.

www.liegeairport.com

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