Nature and wildlife

We have partnered with the Born Free Foundation, a world-renowned and respected animal protection and conservation charity, to underpin and support our award winning animal protection policy. Since 1984, Born Free have worked across the world to preserve and protect wildlife in its natural habitat. Their vision is that all wild animals, whether living in captivity or in the wild, are treated with compassion and respect. Our animal protection policy is supported by PETA who awarded us with their 2019 Travel Award for 'Progress for Animals'.

Our promise

We understand that choice is important, so we will continue to provide the full hotel range you have come to expect from British Airways Holidays. We will provide open and honest information about the products we offer, so you can make fully informed decisions on the holidays you choose.

We are committed to:

Helping our customers make an informed choice by indicating hotels known to keep captive wild animals in our product information
Discouraging our hotel partners that are known to keep wild animals in captivity from doing so
Never promoting wild animals in captivity

We believe the best place for wild animals is in the wild, so we carefully select the excursions and attractions we choose to feature.

We will not offer tickets for attractions where wild animals kept in captivity are central to the attraction, e.g. zoos and dolphinaria
We will not offer tickets for attractions promoting animal performances or swim-with encounters
We will not offer tours that include animal rides or interactions
We will continue to offer tours that enable you to responsibly observe wildlife in its natural habitat

Project Raise the Red Flag

We understand it can be distressing to witness the plight of mistreated wild animals and feel powerless to help. We have been working closely with Born Free to support their Raise the Red Flag initiative. This interactive online resource allows you to report issues of concern relating to the protection of animals in captivity worldwide. Born Free will assess and investigate the concerns raised, calling on relevant authorities to take positive action, and provide you with the tools to enable you to help.

You’ll also be able to check whether any animal protection concerns have already been identified – creating a global awareness of known issues at zoos, circuses, marine parks and other captive animal facilities worldwide.

Find out more about the project

Big Cat Rescue in South Africa

Born Free is one of few organisations in the world with the experience and expertise to rescue wild animals from inadequate captive facilities worldwide. With global connections, and supported by IAG Cargo's transportation options, Born Free can enable these animals to be re-homed and cared for in specially designed sanctuaries where they can live out the rest of their lives in safe, natural surroundings and under expert care.

British Airways Holidays have supported the development of a new and dedicated facility in the Born Free Rescue Section at the Panthera Africa Big Cat Sanctuary in South Africa’s Western Cape. This sanctuary provides 40-hectares of natural habitat where captive-bred big cats are protected for the rest of their lives.

Panthera Africa is now home to two lionesses, named Alpha and Cora. The two neglected lionesses were initially rescued from an illegal zoo in Spain, which has since been closed following bankruptcy and concerns about animal protection. They were given temporary sanctuary at an animal shelter in Belgium, before being flown to their new home.

Alpha and Cora received specialist care and attention from Born Free’s Rescue and Care team and IAG Cargo’s animal transport team as they travelled to London and onto a British Airways flight to Cape Town. The lionesses then travelled a short distance by road before arriving at Panthera Africa.

The new sanctuary enables the lionesses to live out their days in safe and natural surroundings, exploring the sights and sounds of their ancestral home. Watch our short film documenting their journey. It’s heart-warming to see them settling in so well.

Read the video transcript for:

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Born Free are really excited to be collaborating with British Airways

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Holidays to move Alpha and Cora, two lionesses that have come from a failed

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zoo, to a brand new life in South Africa where they're going to be living at

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Panthera Africa's big cat sanctuary. The lionesses will travel from here over

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land to Heathrow where they will have a little bit of a time to wait before they

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get on their flight to Cape Town. In fact there's one just coming past now, I don't

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know if you're going to be able to film it in the background. There is a short

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journey to where we hope their lifetime home is going to be, which is a big cat

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sanctuary called Panthera Africa. We're delighted to be partnering with British

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Airways Holidays on this initiative, they've been immensely generous and it

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wouldn't be possible without them to move these lionesses. They've enabled the

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construction of some dedicated sanctuary space for Born Free to use. It's

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going to be thanks to them and their partners, and our partners IAG who are

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actually undertaking the transport of the animals, that we're able to do this at all.

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This is a really exciting start of a journey not just for Alpha and Cora who

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will obviously get to enjoy a much better quality of life their sanctuary

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in South Africa, but also for British Airways Holidays. It's the start of a

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long term partnership with Born Free and the first of what we hope will be many

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similar initiatives.

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Here we are in the IAG Cargo area and the lionesses have

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arrived through the cargo doors there and they've been checked, we've ensured

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that they're doing okay, they've now been put on the pallets that you can see.

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We're going to leave them alone for a while before it's time to load into the

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plane. They have access to water they can stand up, they can turn around, they can

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lie down, they can be as comfortable as they possibly can on what is a long

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journey but it's worth it in the end for where they're going to spend the rest of

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their life.

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We've just landed in Cape Town, we're just waiting to get off now. I'm quite excited to

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go and check on the two lionesses. Hopefully they've done well in the

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journey and we'll be heading over to the customs check now with the paperwork

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to collect them and the vehicles - so yeah we're looking forward to checking on them

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and making sure that they have had a good journey as well.

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We arrived with Alpha and Cora at the end of a very long journey, I was delighted to

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see them arrive and I'm even more delighted to see how they've settled in

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and they look so relaxed. They look like they're beginning to

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enjoy the fruits of our labours, and to see them settling into what is going to

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be their home for the rest of their life is really quite quite overwhelming.

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Reintroducing animals that have been born and raised in captivity back to the

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wild, it's just not feasible, as much as we would like it to be. So where we're

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standing right now offers these guys the best and the closest we can get to what

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they have evolved to need. Their natural behaviour can be met to as much a degree

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as possible, in this purpose-built enclosure.

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Alpha and Cora have an incredible relationship, they have a beautiful bond, they are inseparable, they

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are always together. Alpha, I would say, is definitely more the courageous one

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and she's usually the first to kind of try something new and want to explore.

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She'll go back and kind of give her a little head bump and be like 'come on,

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let's go' and so they do have a beautiful, beautiful bond.

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Attitudes are changing and in years gone by it was seen as being perfectly acceptable to

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visit animal performances in circuses and be entertained by animals performing

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unnatural acts, so we've responded to that and we've been working with Born

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Free to help develop our animal welfare strategy and that's helped shape our

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approach in terms of the products that we'll sell and the initiatives that we're

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supporting Born Free with. It means the world to be here today to see Alpha and

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Cora settle into their new home. So when I last saw them at Heathrow they were at

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the start of a long journey, I wanted to tell them that 'it'll be worth it'. Now

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we're here, we can see it absolutely is worth it.

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These guys are the lucky ones but they are the tip of the iceberg and we need to stop this terrible

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industry that creates lives of suffering, because we can only help a few. And

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that's what I hope the future brings that Born Free, with our partners, can

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work to bring that bad industry to an end.

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