Bahrain Airport Services (BAS) has announced the completion of modernisation of cargo cooling units for parcels and goods at Bahrain International Airport.

The project saw the enhancing and expansion of the facilities of the refrigeration facility to meet all the storage requirements of goods imported via airfreight in Bahrain.

The service has been activated to ship cosmetics as a first step, with future plans likely to include pharmaceutical preparations for meeting needs in Bahrain and the wider region.

Commenting, BAS chairman Nabeel Kanoo said: “The aim of the newly developed facility is to facilitate the import of goods and their subsequent transport via land freight to Saudi Arabia without the need of re-inspection. BAS is aware of the positive impact this step will have on increasing incoming shipments to Bahrain and enhancing the movement of freight and international transportation of goods through the country, as many airfreight companies prefer to land in the kingdom to transport their goods to Saudi.

“The idea of modernising refrigeration units at Bahrain International Airport stems from the need to ship cosmetics and later on pharmaceuticals to ensure their arrival with utmost quality due to the reliable storage method.”

He added that the company has already received several trucking orders for Saudi from prominent freight service providers including CargoLux and LH, which has boosted ground transportation business at BAS.

Mohamed Khalil Ahmed, chief executive of BAS, commented: “The updates that were made to the refrigeration units included the installation of a Building Management System (BMS) in order to automate the building and achieve higher efficiency of automatic control and monitoring of all equipment and devices to avoid any technical errors that may affect storage safety.”

He added that the sizes of the cold rooms have also been expanded to double the storage capacity.

Furthermore, two additional cold rooms have been added with a total area of 415sqm operating at a temperature of (15-25 degrees Celsius), which has led to the separation of the cold store into three sections, the first for storing food, the second for medicines and pharmaceuticals, and the third for cosmetics.

The project also included modernising the approved storage freezers to operate at a controlled temperature of minus 20, and adding two chillers to the previous chiller unit, which made the total area of the refrigeration units in the facility reach 222.7sqm.

BAS is now seeking to obtain a certification by the Centre of Excellence for Independent Validators in Pharmaceutical Logistics, which is given to trusted carriers for the shipment of time- and temperature-sensitive products.

The initiative is also expected to help in consolidating the kingdom’s position as a preferred destination for airfreight in the region.

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