Special transports around the globe are in the best hands with Gebr'der Weiss. The transport and logistics company has proven this once again in an impressive way. For the Bartholet Maschinenbau AG company, GW has recently transported an entire cable car from Switzerland and the Netherlands via Frankfurt-Hahn (Germany) to Puebla, Mexico. The total weight was 450 tons. The government in Puebla will operate the aerial tramway for the transport of tourists.


The cable car elements weighing 450 tons were maneuvered into the cargo planes with great care and accordingly secured for their journey.

The short delivery time and the tight time schedule led the customer to decide in favour of air freight. A rather unique order that caused astonishment, and not only on the runway: 'It does not happen very often that a complete cable car is loaded into wide-bodied freight aircrafts,' says Marc Kirchberger, Airfreight Export Manager at Gebr'der Weiss. Therefore, the logistical planning carried out in advance had been all the more important, he explains: 'In particular the safe packaging of the goods and the proper loading of the cargo airplanes were logistical challenges.' At the airport in Puebla, a special crane was required for loading the enormous elements onto trucks, which then brought the material to the construction site.

The special transport, handled by four charter flights with a Boeing 747-F, included not only two gondolas with dimensions of 4.5 m x 2.5 m x 3.0 m, but also steel parts for construction of the stations on the mountain and in the valley and for three cable car pylons weighing 35 tons each. In addition, Gebr'der Weiss transported track and haul ropes with a total weight of 100 tons. Some items were as long as 13.8 metres. No less than 25 trucks and three sprinters were needed to transfer the cable car elements to the Frankfurt-Hahn Airport.