Global forwarding and logistics service provider Panalpina recently chartered an Antonov AN 225 freighter aircraft to transport high-tech machinery from Hamburg, Germany to Shijiazhuang, China with stop-overs in Minsk and Novosibirsk. The freight comprised two laser welding machines weighing nearly 150 tonnes and could not be loaded into a Boeing 747 freighter and ocean freight was not an alternative because the hightech equipment was urgently needed at destination, according to Panalpina.