Pharma Cargo: Gulf Carriers Face Integrators on Home Turf

On 1 October 2026, Emirates SkyCargo said it had carried more than 1m pharmaceutical shipments since launching its pharma product in September 2016. Those shipments weigh more than 800,000 tonnes, and the carrier now flies an average of 1,500-2,000 tonnes of medicines a week.

“We ultimately have only one goal, and that is to make sure that we transport these lifesaving medicines and treatments in the best possible conditions as they directly touch the lives of people around the world,” said Badr Abbas, divisional senior vice-president of Emirates SkyCargo.

Days later, on 6 October, FedEx’s hub at Dubai World Central – Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC | OMDW) was awarded IATA’s pharma-handling certificate, the one Emirates decided not to pursue over a decade ago. The two announcements frame the contest. 

Pharma is the Gulf carriers’ premium freight, and they have spent ten years building facilities and credentials to win it. Now the global integrators are building their own cold chains in the same hubs, while the war disrupts the carriers’ networks.

Why Pharma Earns a Premium

Healthcare and pharmaceutical products make up about 4% of global air cargo by weight but 11% of its value, and earn a 39% yield premium, according to the consultancy Aevean, which presented the figures at IATA’s World Cargo Symposium in March 2026.

While the latest ATAG 2024 report did not mention pharma specifically, it noted that these high-value, low-weight shipments contributed to the 61.4m tonnes of total air freight in 2023. Valued at nearly $8trn, this air cargo accounted for a third of global trade by value, despite representing less than 1% by total weight.

The high premium is largely driven by product value. Seabury estimated in 2013 that around 0.5 million tonnes of pharmaceuticals, worth approximately $213 billion ($426 per kg), were transported by air annually, according to ATAG in a previous report. High-value treatments like biologics, insulin, GLP-1 medications, and mRNA vaccines are worth far more.

Against that, the global average air cargo spot rate was $3.12 a kg in July 2026, Xeneta said. Even at several times that rate for temperature-controlled handling, freight is a small part of the value of the goods.

That is why air remains the mode of choice for high-value, time-critical products with a short shelf life, such as biologics, vaccines and clinical-trial supplies, even as mature, high-volume medicines have moved to sea.

What shippers pay for is control of temperature. Under the EU’s Good Distribution Practice (GDP) guidelines, the wholesale distributor is responsible for keeping medicines within their temperature limits throughout transport, including the legs it contracts out to airlines. Distributors therefore audit the carriers they use.

Under the Montreal Convention, a carrier’s liability for lost or damaged cargo is capped at 26 Special Drawing Rights a kg, about $35 at the IMF’s rate on 27 October 2026, unless the shipper has declared a higher value. A spoiled consignment of biologics can be worth many times that, so the shipper carries most of the loss.

IATA has put annual product losses from temperature deviations at $2.5bn-12.5bn, and says more than half of all excursions happen while products are in the hands of airlines and airports. Shippers pay for handling that cuts that risk, and carriers compete to prove they can provide it.

Emirates Chose GDP; Its Rivals Chose CEIV

Two standards dominate. EU GDP governs quality management, facilities and accountability across the supply chain. IATA’s Center of Excellence for Independent Validators in Pharmaceutical Logistics (CEIV Pharma) certifies the steps specific to aviation: ramp transfers, staff training and equipment such as temperature-controlled dollies.

The Gulf’s four largest carriers have split between them. When Emirates opened its pharma hub in 2016, it opted for GDP rather than CEIV Pharma, citing research showing that its customers preferred the European standard. The German auditor Bureau Veritas certified its operations at Dubai International Airport (DXB | OMDB) and DWC, where its GDP-certified handling and storage area now covers more than 16,500 sq m. Etihad Cargo, Qatar Airways Cargo and Saudia Cargo went the other way.

Pharma.Aero is a cross-industry association of pharmaceutical shippers, airlines, airports and forwarders. All four carriers are now members.

A Premium Cargo in a Falling Market

Certificates and cold rooms cost money. The carriers pay for them because pharma pays better than most freight at a time when general yields are falling. Global air cargo yields fell for a third year running in 2025, by 1.5%, as supply and demand returned to normal after the pandemic peak, IATA said. They remain 37% above 2019 levels.

Emirates’ own cargo yield has moved with the market.

Emirates does not publish a yield for pharma. But with general yields falling, a cargo that earns a 39% premium is worth defending.

Carrier Data: Emirates and Qatar Lead

The four carriers report their pharma volumes for different time frames and on different measures, so the figures are a guide to scale rather than a ranking.

• Emirates SkyCargo flies an average of 1,500-2,000 tonnes a week, or about 78,000-104,000 tonnes a year on Aljaweea’s calculation.
• Qatar Airways Cargo carried more than 84,000 tonnes of medical and healthcare shipments in 2022, and said that “more than one in ten global pharmaceutical shipments” were entrusted to its service each year. At Hamad International Airport (DOH | OTHH) it runs a 2,470 sq m airside Climate Control Centre for temperature-sensitive cargo in transit, which it unveiled in 2017.
• Saudia Cargo has handled an average of about 16,000 tonnes of medicines and vaccines a year since 2019, it said in September 2023.
• Etihad Cargo carried close to 10,000 tonnes of pharma in the first 11 months of 2022, its last published tonnage.

On these figures, Emirates and Qatar Airways lead by a wide margin. But their volumes depend on their hubs staying open.

The War Reaches the Hubs

Airspace across much of the Gulf closed after the war began on 28 February 2026, and the disruption has not ended. On 13 October the forwarder Expeditors reported that Riyadh airport remained closed after attacks. Emirates SkyCargo had cancelled its flights to Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah and was moving cargo across the border by truck. 

Qatar Airways had suspended Riyadh and Dammam with no restart date, and Doha’s airspace was partially closed.

For medicines that cannot wait, every closure tests a carrier’s ability to reroute. It also opens a door for competitors with networks of their own.

The Integrators Arrive in Dubai

The global express integrators — UPS, DHL and FedEx — are buying specialist cold-chain businesses to own more of the healthcare shipment from end to end.

UPS has said its healthcare business earns operating margins in the high teens, against 10% for the company as a whole in 2023. It bought Germany’s Frigo-Trans and BPL in January 2025, and completed its C$2.2bn (about $1.6bn) purchase of Canada’s Andlauer Healthcare Group in November 2025. 

DHL pledged €2bn (about $2.2bn at the time) for its health logistics business by 2030, a week after agreeing to buy the specialist courier CryoPDP. FedEx ended its financial year to 31 May 2026 with nearly $10bn in healthcare transportation revenue, Supply Chain Dive reported.

The integrators still buy space on airlines; the businesses they acquired include forwarders that are the carriers’ customers. But each acquisition moves more of the shipment, and its margin, inside the integrator’s own network.

That push has now reached the Gulf. DHL has committed more than €500m (about $570m at the time) to Saudi Arabia and the UAE between 2024 and 2030, naming life sciences and healthcare among its target sectors. 

FedEx’s 57,000 sq m hub at DWC, now CEIV Pharma certified, has 170 sq m of temperature-controlled storage for healthcare shipments, and FedEx holds 30 such certificates worldwide. The certificate Emirates passed over in 2016 now belongs to a competitor at one of Emirates’ own Dubai airports.