Dubai is central in this network. Its primary air-cargo airport—the
world's eleventh largest as of 2024—functions as a major pharmaceutical re-export hub, where medicines arrive, are warehoused, and then are shipped globally. CEVA Logistics, DHL, and DP World—Dubai's pharmaceutical supply-chain logistics giants—have significantly grown the emirate's pharmaceutical and health-care distribution footprint by expanding re-export and cold-chain capacities. They also capitalize on proximity to the Jebel Ali Free Zone, whose container port is the
ninth largest in the world.
Dubai's
air-cargo capacity is almost 4 million tons annually. Considering the
conflict-driven drop in the region's cargo capacity, and that pharmaceuticals account for
4% of global air freight, the emirate could lose out on processing more than 10,000 tons of pharmaceutical air freight this March. These airspace disruptions are also spilling over into
global-health emergency supply-chain response, and the World Health Organization's (WHO) Dubai hub operations are currently
on hold.