In cavernous cold-storage warehouses at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, KLM workers are gearing up for a surge next year in COVID-19 vaccine cargos that will need to be flown around the world at ultra-low temperatures. A major hub for pharmaceutical products, Schiphol has already handled some of the vaccines being used in trials and KLM’s boss is confident its “cold chain” operations will cope with the influx of cargos as mass inoculations start in earnest. “The short and sweet of it is, yes, we’re ready,” KLM Chief Executive Pieter Elbers told Reuters. “Obviously both for societies and our industry it’s of paramount importance to have these vaccines distributed at the quickest possible pace.” While no COVID-19 vaccine has yet been approved by US or European regulators, the shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech is the most advanced in the process and could be ready for rapid production and distribution next month. But it needs to be stored and shipped at minus 70 degrees Celsius while Moderna’s candidate has to be kept at -20C, at least until the drugs have reached their destinations where they can survive in normal fridges for short periods. Allowed behind strict security at Schiphol on Wednesday, Reuters watched Air France-KLM staff prepare four so-called active containers for a shipment of chilled pharmaceuticals bound for Toronto in Canada. Wearing thick blue gloves, workers topped up dry ice in other active containers, which also have a battery-powered electrical refrigeration system and an array of sensors to ensure products stay within their target range, as low as -20C.