EGYPTAIR Resumes Shipping Monkeys to Their Deaths, Risks Disease Spread

Update (September 29, 2023): We just caught EGYPTAIR transporting hundreds of long-tailed macaques from the island nation of Mauritius to New York so they could be delivered into the hands of U.S. experimenters.

This latest shameful shipment is more proof that the airline has gone back on its word and has resumed shipping monkeys to their deaths in laboratories, risking the spread of disease and depleting the world of an endangered species, all to make a few quick bucks. We need your help to stop it.

Last year, EGYPTAIR pledged that in view of its support of “the vision and mission” of animal protection organizations, it would no longer transport monkeys to laboratories.

Shamefully, that promise ended up proving worthless.

Last month, PETA learned that the airline apparently violated the promise by shipping approximately 500 long-tailed macaques—listed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—from Mauritius to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, all bound for torment in laboratories. Moreover, they were reportedly shipped from a monkey-breeding company that has been in the midst of an outbreak of tuberculosis, a highly infectious disease that monkeys have transmitted to humans.

PETA, Action for Primates, One Voice, and Abolición Vivisección have urged EGYPTAIR Holding Company CEO Yehia Zakaria to honor the company’s promise.

But we urgently need you to speak up for monkeys, too.

PETA entities coordinated dozens of actions, and supporters flooded EGYPTAIR with more than 100,000 e-mails and hundreds of telephone calls asking it to stop shipping monkeys to laboratories. It worked until the company’s greed overcame integrity and empathy.

It’s time we did it again. Please TAKE ACTION today!

Original post:

Thanks to the efforts of PETA, other animal protection organizations, and caring people around the globe, nearly every major airline in the world has stopped transporting monkeys to laboratories. Now, it’s time for us to use our collective voices again to let EGYPTAIR know that it has made a very bad business decision by getting involved in the cruel trade in primates for experimentation. We recently received information that 720 long-tailed macaques who’d been torn away from their families in Cambodia were transported to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York on April 30, 2022.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited EGYPTAIR for poor handling and inadequate ventilation and enclosures after a kitten being transported as checked baggage from Cairo to JFK arrived dead. The crate holding the kitten had been covered in solid plastic wrap, preventing airflow. She had not been given any food or water for the 11-hour flight, and her legs, chest, and muzzle were covered with urine. Since March 2022, EGYPTAIR has transported as many as 5,000 macaques to the U.S.—we don’t know whether they all survived and can only imagine the conditions they endured.

Every year, tens of thousands of monkeys are transported to the U.S. to be imprisoned in laboratories and tormented in experiments that consistently fail to lead to meaningful scientific advances. These highly social and sensitive individuals are either captured in nature or bred in captivity on squalid factory farms, where many die from injury and disease even before they’re crammed into small wooden crates and confined to dark, terrifying cargo holds of planes for shipment around the globe.

The EGYPTAIR flight landed at JFK in the wee hours of the morning. The monkeys would have been traveling on planes for more than 30 hours. The torturous and deadly journey didn’t stop in New York—the no doubt terrified animals were apparently loaded into trucks and driven to quarantine facilities in Texas.

The incentive for airlines to stop shipping monkeys to laboratories is even clearer now, after a truck transporting 100 long-tailed macaques—who had been flown by Kenya Airways from Mauritius to JFK—collided with another vehicle earlier this year. Dozens of wooden crates holding the cold and scared monkeys were thrown from the truck onto a Pennsylvania highway. Several escaped, and authorities confirmed that three were shot dead. Several people who stopped to survey the scene of the accident interacted with the monkeys, and at least one reported symptoms of illness afterward. Given the panoply of pathogens carried by macaques that can be transmitted to humans, it’s clear that the international transport of monkeys is not only a serious ethical issue but also a grave threat to public health and safety—including for passengers and crewmembers on these flights. After PETA contacted Kenya Airways with this information, it committed to stop shipping monkeys from Mauritius to the U.S.

We privately urged EGYPTAIR to follow Kenya Airways’ lead by ending this practice, but so far, the airline has failed to respond to us. We need your help!

Please send polite e-mails to the EGYPTAIR staff below, asking them not to transport monkeys to laboratories or be involved in this cruel industry in any other way. EGYPTAIR should join other airline industry leaders in prohibiting the shipment of primates destined for laboratories.

Ahmed Shaheen
Chair
EGYPTAIR Cargo
[email protected]

EGYPTAIR Cargo Manager, JFK
[email protected]

Please feel free to use these talking points (but remember that using your own words is always more effective):

• Nearly every major airline in the world refuses to ship monkeys to laboratories, where they’re subjected to horrific treatment. These sensitive animals endure highly invasive surgeries, maternal deprivation, toxicity testing, paralysis through intentional damage to their brain or spinal cord, and much more.
• Monkeys carry diseases that can easily be transmitted to humans, including tuberculosis and herpes B. Not only is the international transport of these animals a serious ethical issue, it also represents a grave threat to the health and safety of the public—including your flight and ground crews.
• The monkeys EGYPTAIR is transporting, long-tailed macaques, are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as an endangered species. Multiple importers are currently under investigation for possible violations of monkey-importation laws.