Maybe it was a political stunt, but actually there are two justification of that.

1) The volume. The masks and other protective gear is volume-demanding cargo, since the overall density including packing (boxes) is low. The Boeing 777 Freighter (777F) has 518m3 of cargo volume on main deck [1], An-225 has 1200m3 [2], so the price per 1m3 of volume is 1930$ and 2500$ respectively (ratio 1.3).

2) The demand and the quarantine itself. During March-April demand on masks was enormous, everyone tried to buy them, some countries even tried to take over deliveries for other ones. China and many other countries were not accepting flights, so arranging even a single flight was challenging (thats why An-225 was flying through Almaty city that many times when making China-Europe routes, all other airports simply didn't accept any planes for transit and refueling). As a result, one huge plane was much more beneficial than 2-3 smaller ones.

[1] https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_...

[2] https://www.antonov-airlines.com/our-fleet/an-225

Edit: correcting An-225 cargo volume from 1100m3 to 1200m3 using data from the official website.

Another factor that was mentioned when it flew medical supplies to Montreal is that the An-225 always flies with all the crew it needs, including replacements, and so it was feasible for the plane to wait for a few hours while the logistics were being sorted out (e.g. cash-and-carry deals right on the tarmac, the situation was reportedly crazy in march/april). With another plane/airline, the time slot may be too tight because of crew schedules, etc.

Antonov airlines have a much more cheaper, and more available An-124 with 1000m³ useful cargo volume. An even more easily available, and thus cheaper to hire, 747 has 500 to 600m³ volume in different configurations.

Yes, An-124 is indeed a good cheaper alternative with comparable capabilities for this kind of cargo, but in March-April it seems there was a high demand on all Antonov fleet [1] plus the PR factor is not playing the last role here.

[1] https://www.dw.com/uk/protydiia-koronavirusu-mriia-y-ruslany... or https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

Except again, at the time when this happened everyone raised their prices so that even a single 747 was more than 1/2 price of the antonov. In normal conditions, absolutely, but at the time the demand was at the peak time high. I still think it was a stunt more than anything, but not because of the airplane.

Canada too. I think it landed twice in Montreal.

https://youtu.be/OGbtUHEYJ3M

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

Having countries matter on the internet now feels like going back to the 90's after living in the future for a while. :/

The 90s Internet didn't have deliberate region blocks. The future is old, and it is dying.

While the connection speeds of today are hard to give up, I liked having oceans of smaller sites instead of a handful of larger ones with content shared from the others. http://c0rk.tripod.com