Air France has announced it will stop transporting monkeys to laboratories as soon as its current contracts end (which hopefully will not take years to happen). This is the latest major airline that has decided to stop contributing to vivisection after many years of campaigning from animal rights organisations, such as Stop Camarles, One Voice, Action for Primates, Cruelty Free International, the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments, and PETA.
Air France was the last major airline still willing to transport primates for research in Europe or the US. In 2005, British Airways decided to stop transporting animals bound for scientific experimentation. United Airlines followed suit in 2013. American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Northwest Airlines, Qantas Airways, South African Airways, Delta Airlines, Eva Air, and China Airlines, all banned transporting primates for vivisection. There are still minor commercial airlines that are transporting them, though. In February 2022, Kenya Airways announced it will not renew its contract with a Mauritius farm that breeds primates for laboratory experiments. EGYPTAIR has reportedly flown as many as 5,000 monkeys into the US since March 2022. Spain’s Wamos Air is another of the remaining airlines.
In 2014 actor James Cromwell said, “The real horror story is the pain and terror of the monkeys in Air France’s cargo holds beneath the feet of unsuspecting passengers… My friends at PETA and I are telling Air France that cruelty shouldn’t fly and that the airline needs to join the rest of the industry in refusing to deliver primates to their deaths in laboratories.” It seems the company has finally listened. In July 2022, when the decision was made, Action for Primates said, “Action for Primates is grateful that Air France will now become part of the growing list of passenger airlines that have ended their involvement in the cruel international trade in non-human primates.”
