A 4°C excursion costs more than a year of FlightSure.
Pfizer cut tarmac excursions on European pharma lanes by 62% in six months.
The supply chain after the pandemic.
After 2021, Pfizer's cold-chain logistics function inherited a regulatory and reputational standard that hadn't existed before. Every batch was tracked. Every excursion was documented. And every documented excursion had a cost — quality review, batch hold, reissue, and the operational tail of all three. The compressors weren't the problem. The packaging wasn't the problem. The problem was tarmac dwell at transit hubs in summer.
Excursions in transit, not in the truck.
Pfizer's internal review of 2024 excursions found that 71% were attributable to apron and tarmac dwell at transit hubs, not failures in conditioning equipment. Of those, the majority were forecastable: the weather signal that drove the dwell extension existed 6–12 hours in advance, but the signal didn't reach the planner who could have re-sequenced the consignment.
A cold-chain console inside the existing TMS.
FlightSure's cold-chain decision engine was integrated into Pfizer's TMS over a fortnight. Every active consignment is now scored against a 12-hour excursion-risk model, and the recommended pre-cool setpoint, loading slot, and routing alternative is surfaced inside the planner's existing tools — no new login, no new console.
Excursions down, production up, time recovered.
In the first six months: tarmac excursions on the 24 monitored European lanes fell 62%; modelled avoided cost was $14m; production cycle time recovered an average of 11 hours per consignment; and the operational team stopped running a separate weekly weather brief.
From Europe to the global lane book.
The European deployment is rolling out to the global lane book in 2026, prioritising South-East Asian and South American transit hubs where dwell-driven excursion risk is highest.
“FlightSure stopped a quarter of our excursions in the first six months. The integration into our TMS took a fortnight. The conversation in the room is no longer 'why did this batch fail QA?' — it's 'why didn't we re-sequence this lane sooner?'”DirectorGlobal Cold-Chain Logistics, Pfizer