Companies & Markets Oct 14, 2026 · 7 min read

DHL adds six cold-chain air corridors to Asia

DHL puts DHL Express freighters behind pharma to Asia. DHL Global Forwarding has added six temperature-controlled air corridors from Europe and the US to Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul, Air Cargo News reported on 13 October. Most of the flying is on DHL Express-branded aircraft. Our view: a forwarder now sells capacity on its own group’s branded freighters, and asset-light rivals will struggle to match that. In February DHL said it was “reducing reliance on third-party carriers and commercial airlines”. Expect pharma tenders on these lanes to use it as a benchmark. We predict DHL names a Middle East or Latin America corridor by end of Q2 2027.

DHL’s six new pharma lanes to Asia fly mostly on its own group’s freighters
DHL Global Forwarding has added six dedicated Life Sciences and Healthcare air corridors to Asia, Air Cargo News reported on 13 October. They link Europe and North America with pharma hubs in China, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. The six lanes are:

Liège–Shanghai

Brussels–Shanghai

Brussels–Singapore

Cincinnati–Singapore

Cincinnati–Tokyo Narita

Cincinnati–Seoul Incheon

On its own, a forwarder launching six lanes is routine. This one is different. Most of the flying is on aircraft from DHL’s own express arm. That changes what the forwarder is selling.

What we think this means

Our view: DHL Global Forwarding is turning its group’s freighter fleet into a pharma product that asset-light forwarders cannot copy quickly.
Most forwarders buy air capacity from airlines. For pharma, that usually means belly space (the cargo hold of a passenger plane) or space on a carrier’s freighter, plus a chain of handovers. The forwarder picks up, the handler builds the pallet, the airline flies it and another handler breaks it down. Each handover is a place where a shipment can sit on a warm ramp. In the trade that is called a temperature excursion: the goods leave their allowed range, and a batch of medicine can be written off.
DHL’s pitch is that it removes most of those handovers. We think that is a real advantage on these six lanes. We also think the rest of the market will have to answer it, not ignore it.

What DHL has actually put in place

Air Cargo News reports that most flights in the new corridors run on DHL Express-branded aircraft. Its Boeing 777 freighters have three compartments, each with its own temperature setting. That lets one aircraft carry, say, chilled vaccines and room-temperature tablets on the same trip without one compromising the other.
The magazine says keeping cargo within the DHL network reduces handovers and gives the company more control over shipments. Henk Venema, global head of airfreight at DHL Global Forwarding, put it this way: “These new corridors further expand our Cold Chain Network into strategically important healthcare markets across Asia.” He added: “This enables our customers to move critical healthcare products with greater confidence and reliability.”
The Cincinnati end matters. In February DHL said the Brussels–Cincinnati lane “connects the U.S. Midwest, home to leading pharma companies”. Three of the six new lanes start there. Two more start at Brussels, where DHL says the BRUcargo site has 45,000 square metres of pharma-only zones. The sixth starts at Liège, also in Belgium. Air Cargo News describes Cincinnati as a gateway to Asian pharma markets.

How we got here

This launch is the second step of a plan DHL laid out in public eight months ago.
On 19 February 2026 DHL Group announced an expanded airfreight cold-chain network. It started with one dedicated Boeing 777 freighter between Brussels and Cincinnati. The release said the network would “first connect major DHL hubs, including Brussels (BRU) - Cincinnati (CVG)”. It said “additional routes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America” would follow, without dates.
The same release said why. The dedicated routing aimed at “reducing reliance on third-party carriers and commercial airlines”. It promised “consistent, controllable capacity on one of the most critical pharma lanes”. The network covers more than 30 GDP-compliant aviation hubs and gateways. GDP means Good Distribution Practice, the rules for storing and moving medicines safely. All of it sits inside a EUR2 billion strategic investment in DHL Health Logistics.
Oscar de Bok, CEO of DHL Global Forwarding, Freight, set out the customer case in February: “Life sciences and healthcare companies expect cold chain solutions that are reliable, compliant, and transparent”. He said those expectations “are rising fast”.
Then came Singapore. In early September DHL announced a Singapore Coldchain Hub at Changi Airport’s Changi Airfreight Centre. BioSpectrum Asia reported on 7 September that “The S$22 million facility will provide 3,047 square metres of GDP-aligned temperature-controlled infrastructure”. It will have zones at 2–8°C and 15–25°C. The magazine said: “The facility is expected to open in late 2027.” STAT Times, on 4 September, said it was targeted for completion by the end of 2027.
BioSpectrum Asia also reported that EUR500 million of the EUR2 billion programme is earmarked for Asia Pacific. Praveen Gregory, CEO of DHL Global Forwarding for Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, said then: “In healthcare logistics, precision is non-negotiable.”
So the sequence is clear. A pilot lane in February. A ground facility in Asia in September. Six Asian air corridors in October. Two of the new lanes end in Singapore, more than a year before the hub there is due to open.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

Here is our read of the knock-on effects.
Pharma tenders on these lanes will change. A shipper moving biologics from the US Midwest to Japan or Korea now has a bidder that can offer one company’s aircraft, crew and handling from origin hub to destination hub. Procurement teams like a single throat to choke. We expect DHL’s corridors to be named as the benchmark in the next round of pharma air tenders on these lanes, whether or not DHL wins them.
Independent forwarders need a counter-offer. In our view, few asset-light forwarders will buy or lease 777 freighters to compete. Instead, a forwarder without its own fleet can do three things. It can tie up with airlines that run their own certified pharma products and fly the same city pairs. It can sell its strengths elsewhere, such as door-to-door handling, packaging choice and customs work at destination. Or it can compete on price and flexibility, since a dedicated network has fixed schedules and fixed costs to fill.
Lane choice will shift at the edges. Cincinnati and Liège are not the obvious first gateways for most shippers. If DHL can show steady transit times through them, some Midwest pharma flows that now truck to Chicago or New York for belly space may stay in the Midwest instead. DHL made exactly that argument in February, saying the Brussels–Cincinnati lane avoids coastal congestion.
Belly capacity is not going away. In our view passenger airlines will stay a big part of pharma air freight, and many offer certified cold-chain products. DHL’s move does not make that capacity worse. It makes a controlled alternative available, and gives shippers a reference point when they judge the airline-based option.
Watch the risk on DHL’s side, too. A dedicated network is only as good as its load factor, which is how full the aircraft are. In our view, pharma alone will rarely fill a 777. DHL will need to fill the rest of the space with other express and forwarding cargo. If general air demand softens, the economics get harder, and schedules on thinner lanes could be trimmed. Forwarders competing against DHL should watch for that.

Questions to ask before the next pharma tender

If you are a forwarder bidding against these corridors, or a shipper weighing them, our suggestion is to get specific. The announcement names city pairs. It does not publish frequencies, transit times or rates. Those are the numbers that decide a tender.
Five questions worth putting in writing:

How many flights a week on each lane? A corridor with two departures a week is a very different product from one with daily service, especially for products with short shelf lives.

Which flights are DHL aircraft, and which are not? Air Cargo News says most flights run on DHL Express-branded aircraft. “Most” is not all. Ask which legs, if any, use other carriers.

What happens at the Asian end? The Singapore hub is not due until late 2027. Until then, ask who handles the cargo on arrival in Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul, and at what temperature.

What is the backup if a flight is cancelled? A dedicated network has fewer alternatives on the same day than the open market does.

How are excursions reported? Ask for the data the shipper will get, how often, and who carries the liability.

Forwarders who can answer these questions well, for their own product, will hold their customers. Those who cannot will find the comparison done for them.

Our prediction

The February release named four regions. Asia has now been delivered, about eight months after the first lane. The Singapore hub is coming in late 2027. That leaves the Middle East and Latin America still to come.
Our call: DHL Global Forwarding will announce at least one dedicated cold-chain air corridor into the Middle East or Latin America by the end of Q2 2027. We also expect at least one large forwarder to answer within the same window with a named pharma lane to North Asia built on a block-space deal with an airline, rather than its own aircraft.

Sources