PETA, our supporters, other members of the public, and other animal protection organizations have worked together to persuade nearly every major airline in the world to stop 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 more than 1,500 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 write to EGYPTAIR and ask it not to send monkeys to laboratories or be involved in this cruel industry in any other way. The airline should join other industry leaders in prohibiting shipments of primates destined for laboratories.

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