Can a pilot object to transpot live animals?
 

Hi
I was wondering if there is any law in any western Europe country that gives a pilot the right to refuse to transport live animals because of his/her religious or moral belief. (ie. orango or dogs destined to laboratories for experiments)
Did something like this ever happen and what was the outcome?

regards

If it's legal to carry, properly boxed, loaded etc, why not?

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally against animal testing, but what's next?

A pilot of a passenger airline interviewing all his passengers and checking their luggage to find out if anyone has either moral and religious believes, or possessions (eg. a book from Scientology, a Bible, or heaven forbid: a pornographic movie on their laptop!) that conflicts with his own views? An environmentally conscious cargo pilot refusing to accept exotic high performance cars?

Sorry, but welcome to the real world! :8

Though I am not a pilot this intrigues me. Surely the decision on cargo is made well before the pilot's involvement.
In my humble opinion, the pilot is contracted to carry out the orders of his employers.
If he/she is going to be selective, I fear for the integrity of the company he works for.
My thoughts are the pilot should carry out orders. :cool:

Not if he/she wants to keep his/her job.

Thanks for your points. This has nothing to do with my question. I never talked about interfering with people individual rights or belief, I was talking about objecting to transport live animals destined to a cruel death as this may be against the pilot moral or religious belief.

Whether "the pilot is contracted to carry out the orders of his employers" is completely subjective. What would you do if your airline assigns you a flight to transport human beings destined to be sold as slaves?
While this example may sound exaggerated it shows that what is acceptable and what it is not is completely subjective, indeed a few decades ago it was perfectly acceptable for ships captains to transport slaves, nowadays thanks god nobody would accept to do that.
While it can be perfectly acceptable to you to transport animals which are destined to a whole life of painful tortures, some people can find it very difficult to accept that they are involved in some ways in the process of condemning an animal to endless brutal tortures and death.

In many countries people can object to military service due to their moral belief, I suppose there might be a legal way to object to do some duties your employer may request you to do. I obviously understand that if most of the duties involved in my job are against my belief I cannot expect to be relieved from all of them, and I should just not accept the job or quit. But if there are just a limited number of duties involving going against my beliefs why shouldn't I be legally allowed to request not to be assigned to those duties?

Good point. Many people in the past have lost their jobs for refusing to be involved in "racist" duties such as denying access to public services or to shops to black or Jewish people. If all those people had adopted your methods the world today would be much worse.

You can just see where this is going,
Crew refusing to carry race horses because they think its cruel to race them and keep them in boxes, crew refusing to carry wild animals because the do not agree with animals being kept in cages in zoos, refusing to carry hatching eggs because the chicks might be kept in confined spaces, then there will be the ones that wont carry live fish because the dont agree with keeping fish in tanks or ponds, etc etc, Its part of the job, accept it or go fly SLF!

How would the pilot know this? If he did he'd be morally obliged to report the end user for cruelty to animals, which carries heavy penalties.

But as you said it was in Western Europe you must know that it is illegal to put animals to a cruel death so the situation is just not going to arise, is it?

Even so, no-one can stop you asking your employer to relieve you of any duty you don't want to do. But do it more than once - or - for the reasons you appear to have chosen, even less than that, and your boss is going to think (quite understandably) that he has a nutter on his hands, and you'll soon find yourself with more time off than you'd planned for.

What's next? Veggie pilots refusing duty because there's meat in the co-pilot's dinner?

ps. What's an "orango"?

Yes and no. As I pointed out earlier, even flying SLF can lead to moral and religious objections.

Who knows, when you fly SLF you could be carrying one of those people who work with animals in labs on board your aircraft. What are you going to to then indupilot? Kick this person off your flight?

According to you "this has nothing to do with my question," but the fact is that you can't start making emotional and personal judgements about legal cargo and passengers.

Legally IMHO you won't have a foot to stand on if you refuse to fly, so you better either do the honorable thing and resign if you can't stand it, or put up with it and try to change things on the legal front.

I've met pilots who have been asked to fly live animals... they didn't like doing it either because of the smell and noise, or because they suspected what was going to happen to the animals upon their arrival.
They voiced their opinions to the operator, but knew that they couldn't refuse to perform the flight on those grounds... so they did it grudgingly.

No real difference to flying munitions of war around the world, if you don't believe in that conflict. You do it because it's part of your job.

Breaking the law by flying certain cargoes is something different altogether.

We do this all the time...... as do all the airlines in the middle east.... :(

Mutt

FWIW:

We carry the occasional shipment of live pigs.

We also have a large number of Muslim crewmembers, and basically avoid rostering them for such flights.

Sometimes it can't be avoided, thus posing a possible moral dilemma for the crewmember concerned.

An interesting issue.......................

From the cargo manifest and the notification of special goods to the crew, how would you know the final outcome for the animals concerned?

A consignment is a consignment.

Cargo is cargo. :ugh:

I routinely carry large quantities of sewn products out of Central America. I am a contributor to the sweat-shop environment that creates these products. It does bother me and there is nothing I can do about it, other than quit.

Do we have an animal rights activist fishing for information on 'any law in any western Europe country that gives a pilot the right to refuse to transport live animals'

Certainly the tone (zealous) and content of the posts is indicative of someone with more than a passing knowledge of vivisection.

If so I would suggest that the subject has no place in an aviation forum. Furthermore I would caution against the dissemination of information to groups and/or individuals who commonly resort to violence and illegal acts to further their aims.

Perhaps I'd misunderstood but I thought muslims weren't supposed to eat pig, I hadn't realised that they couldn't be in the vicinity of pigs as well.

I don't doubt that they'd prefer not to operate such flights, but does this pose a "moral dilemma"? I doubt it somehow. Has anyone asked them, or are we, as usual, making grossly inaccurate politically (in)correct assumptions based on ignorance and wishful (self damaging) thinking in subjects in which we have little, if any, real knowledge? (Like the idiotic rationale for not mentioning Christmas because it might offend - which is demonstrably hokum)

I can;t help thinking that we take far too much notice of imagined upsets caused to others, suggesting that there is a moral problem in carrying pax with a certain job description is tantamout to overt racism and is irrational, irresponsible and abhorrent to any right-minded person.

If people have such idiotic perjudices we should humour them perhaps (at best), but not let their daft ideas rule our behaviour.

After all, we have to inhabit the real world too...

Moral objections to cruelty
 

Congratulations for taking a moral stance on cruelty to animals. Even by posting here, you should take satisfaction that you are advancing the moral argument (in Northern Europe/Oz/NZ at least, where the centre of morality is centred - and the rest of the world eventually follows a few years behind).

But as others have said, all you can do at the moment is to refuse to fly the cargo - with the risk of being fired.

But bear in mind that often taking a morale stance, although it may lose you a job, can open doors in other careers.

My first flying "job" was dropping two sacks of Winalot dog-biscuits from a microlight onto the (two day starved) hounds of a fox-hunt in UK. The dogs sensibly all gave up the hunt for the free biscuits. I ended up with a criminal record - but it has been a great asset to me later in my career as it demonstrated my commitment to a worthwhile cause - to defend animals against torment for human pleasure..

How on earth would I know what the cargo on board is intended for? Most of the time I don't even know what it is down there. If live animals are on board, would I know if the animals are going to a zoo, to be sold as pets, or to be released into the wilds of downtown Kansas City? I wouldn't know, nor would it be my place to ask.

I've carried unusual loads, ranging from weapons to equipment to animals to people (not much difference between the animals and the people) to cars, to things I can't talk about, to things I know nothing about. I've carried them into busy cities, rural areas, and combat zones. I'm not paid to decide who gets to fly or to determine what I can carry, save for making the determination of what is safe to carry.

Could I refuse to carry something? If it's unsafe, yes. If I don't like it? Sure, I could refuse...in lieu of submitting a letter of resignation.

Huh??!!!
 

"Many people in the past have lost their jobs for refusing to be involved in "racist" duties such as denying access to public services or to shops to black or Jewish people. If all those people had adopted your methods the world today would be much worse. "

Excuse me, but exactly are MY METHODS??!! Your examples are those of an extremest. I feel badly for you since there is no way that you may find happiness in a world where people eat animals. I surely hope you don't wear leather shoes...
:mad:

CirrusF. This is a Professional pilots forum. Anyone who commits criminal acts by dropping objects from an aircraft is neither Professional nor a decent pilot. Anyone who crows about having a criminal record, or using it to progress their criminal career is simply beyond the pale.

I think you've proved you're disqualified to partake in a discussion such as this.

Go away, you don't belong here among honest decent people.

Hey Indupilot...Are you sure you're not just another journo trying to stir the pot on a slow news day? The logical conclsion to your argument or premise is millions of service workers, globally, refusing to perform their jobs because they don't feel like it since they may or may not have "heard" something, somewhere that wasn't "just so" in whatever they were doing. Oh, and only lawyers and judges can sort it all out.

Silly.

Unless you had an Aerial Application Certificate issued by the CAA (ANO Article 68), you were in violation of ANO Article 66.

Deliberate violation of the Air Navigation Order is NOT a great asset to a career as a Professional Pilot.

The forum is Pprune; Professional Pilot Rumour Network.

Emphasis on Professional.

Personal views on morality to deliberately violate regulations is not professional.

Criminal record ? You should have had your license tugged!

As a stout selective vegetable liberationist I can understand 'some' of the sentiments expressed here (I eat meat out of respect for selected vegetables , particularly brocoli which I haven't eaten since being forced as a child)

I am always willing to stand and fight for a vegetable in distress as long as it asks for help .... but it hasn't happened yet.

I think if the dogs , orangos , gerbils or whatever can plead a good case not to be flown on their own to the crew or freight company management then they should be heard. A mass break out in flight would get their attention.

To the rest of you for your own sake's get a life instead of being hero's in your own lunch time by being dog biscuit bombers or assaulting people who are doing things you don't agree with.

What happened to minding your own business.

So Cirrus, whilst you were dropping dog biscuits in violation of the air navigation order and 'proudly' earning yourself a criminal record in the process, your accomplices were stringing piano wire between trees to inflict horrific wounds on horses thus rendering them unable to participate.

Cruelty to animals in all forms is disgusting - but your methods as activists in pursuit of reform are reprehensible and irresponsible. Please stay away from aviation and do the decent thing by surrendering your license. We neither need nor want your sort amongst us.

Well said Donalk

After biscuit bombing this guy went a lot further ...

http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/365...er-charge.html

I wonder if this particular pilot is still proud of what he did in defence of helpless animals ?

Activists and aviation don't mix

Presumably the people shipping the animals consider they have a right to do that if they are acting legally.

Personally I have no beef with dropping biscuits to the dogs. My only comment there is "well played."

Dog Biscuits
 

Ah, I see the Holier-Than-Thou (And Rightly So) brigade are out en force today. :}

Wonder what happened to getting a life, minding your own business, not talking about things you have no knowledge of (or at least not being an opinionated prick about it :rolleyes:), and of course, feeding the dogs once in a while so other people don't have to. :ok:

High horses and all that :cool:

Good point LH2

From my perspective I've just had a gutful of the PC , greenie , pro this , anti that crap

I'll go back to my cave now and light up a cigarette :)

What sort of daft question is this?

A professional pilot can refuse to do anything they want, but they will then be sacked for not performing a legal request from their company. Often that is simple gross misconduct.

Fairly simple really.

Ab (won't even try and spell it)

Your comments to CirrusF are out of order - he/she is quite entitled to post what he likes on here, within limits. It's an open and free forum even if what he did was illegal (so is driving at 75mph on the M4).

And what a cracking way to cock up a fox hunt, though don't think I'd risk my licence for it!

I think you'll find most reputable airlines have embargoes on certain types of animal. CV for example (as far as I can remember) won't fly frogs (legs...yum yum) or monkeys (testing)...

Flew a whale from BCN to SAN (from their aquarium to Sea World's aquarium, a captive born white rhino from DUS to JNB (to be let free in Namibia). Pregnant (milk) cows, day old chickens, horses are all "regular" cargo these days.

I think the argument would be similar to a pilot refusing to fly a certain type of pax or saying "I'm not flying to XXX because the govt is repressive".

Do you have the "right"? Sure you do. But then the company has the right to say "Thanks, you can leave now". During GW1 an L/M I knew was let go for refusing to fly "military equipment" as it suddenly turned out he was a pacifist. "But Bob (name invented), these are only gas masks to be distributed to civilians". He wouldn't have it, no way. He was invited to leave.

It's all up to the airline, the capt has no rights in this. Mutt has it right, at Saudia I've had horses worth more than the MD-11.

Also worth less than the aircraft on the way out and twice the value of the aircraft on the way back.

Induplicitous, you`ve been very quiet for a bit, have enough for our article do we ?
Perhaps you could explain your interest here, `though plainly l would be infringeing your human rights by saying "put up or shut up"

So l won`t.