PETA protesters wearing monkey masks and holding signs reading, "Deplane Monkeys," recently held demonstrations outside the Chicago headquarters of United Airlines and the U.S. headquarters of Air France in New York. PETA is urging the airlines to commit to a ban on shipping primates to laboratories, as almost every airline in the world already has, including Delta, American, US Air, and China Airlines.

No-Fly Zone

PETA demonstrators also dropped a banner from a busy overpass next to United HQ, generating a lot of views and picture-taking:

After eight months of pressure from PETA and our supporters, the prestigious scientific journal Nature has confirmed that China Southern Airlines is no longer transporting primates to the United States for use in experiments.

As part of its merger with Continental Airlines, United Airlines has announced that on March 3 it will drop its current flat rate for pets that are checked as excess baggage and instead require all animals to be shipped as cargo. For those changing duty stations in the Pacific, the change could mean paying about $1,440 to $3,869 to fly with an animal back to the United States, depending on its size. Currently, United charges $283 for most pets, according to estimates provided Tuesday by Continental customer service.

This is a huge blow to many military families with pets. A lot of families will be forced to either abandon their pet, or accrue a large debt in order to keep a beloved member of their family. This is an ill advised decision to those at Continental/United Airlines.

When we told you that Air France was planning to ship 60 monkeys to the notorious Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories (SNBL) this week, you came through with tens of thousands of e-mails, Facebook posts, tweets, and phone calls—and thanks to your quick action, Air France has now confirmed that the shipment has been canceled!

Just Say Non to Shipping Primates to Labs

Immediately upon learning that the monkeys were to be shipped from a Bioculture-owned monkey farm on the African island of Mauritius to Paris and then on to Chicago, where they'd be loaded onto a truck bound for a facility operated by SNBL, PETA got in touch with key executives at Air France urging them to cancel the shipment.

In January 2011, news broke that Aeroflot, Russia’s flag carrier and largest airline, forced Maxim Kupreev, a gay employee, to marry a woman as retaliation for trying to start an LGBT employees rights group within the company. We ask that Delta Airlines and Air France, two founding members of the SkyTeam Alliance, suspend Aeroflot, from the airline alliance until they agree to treat LGBT employees with respect and dignity.