I came home to an e-mail from Alex Hofford : ...today, I just got word that one of the Middle Easts biggest carriers, Etihad Airways of Abu Dhabi, not only went shark free, but live primate free too! etihadcargo/pages/animals-animalproducts.aspx They now follow Emirates, their sister airline in the United Arab Emirates, in going shark free. It certainly seems that Etihad Airways have raised the bar in the aviation industry in terms not only of conservation, but animal welfare too. Following the lead of Philippine Airlines, who, thanks to the efforts of PETA, also went primate-free a few months ago prior to their shark fin free announcement, Etihad Airways primate-and-shark-lucky-combo announcement certainly looks like a game of oneupmanship with the other not-so-cool airlines still to announce their sharks cargo policy. Therefore, I believe that we can safely expect to see more airlines to announce shark (and hopefully primate?) free policies in the run up to the implementation of the next round of CITES Appendix II shark listings on 14 September. The list is now up to a grand total of twenty airlines; Etihad Airways Philippine Airlines Air Asia Garuda Indonesia Korean Airlines Asiana Airlines Emirates Eva Air Qantas Air New Zealand Qatar Airways KLM Swiss FinnAir Lufthansa Lan Chile / LATAM Airlines Group Aeroméxico FijiAirways (operates sustainable fins only policy) Cathay Pacific/Dragonair (operates sustainable fins only policy, but has yet to implement it) Watch those slow motion dominoes fall! Great news after a long hard day at work ! Thank you Alex
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 13:48:53 +0000