Budget airline begins deportation flights for ICE with start of Arizona
operations
[May 13, 2025] By
JACQUES BILLEAUD
PHOENIX (AP) — A budget airline that serves mostly small U.S. cities
began federal deportation flights Monday out of Arizona, a move that's
inspired an online boycott petition and sharp criticism from the union
representing the carrier’s flight attendants.
Avelo Airlines announced in April it had signed an agreement with the
Department of Homeland Security to make charter deportation flights from
Mesa Gateway Airport outside Phoenix. It said it will use three Boeing
737-800 planes for the flights.
The Houston-based airline is among a host of companies seeking to cash
in on President Donald Trump's campaign for mass deportations.
Congressional deliberations began last month on a tax bill with a goal
of funding, in part, the removal of 1 million immigrants annually and
housing 100,000 people in U.S. detention centers. The GOP plan calls for
hiring 10,000 more U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and
investigators.
Details of Avelo agreement with ICE not disclosed
Avelo was launched in 2021 as COVID-19 still raged and billions of
taxpayer dollars were propping up big airlines. It saves money mainly by
flying older Boeing 737 jets that can be bought at relatively low
prices. And it operates out of less-crowded and less-costly secondary
airports, flying routes that are ignored by the big airlines. It said it
had its first profitable quarter in late 2023.
Andrew Levy, Avelo's founder and chief executive, said in announcing the
agreement last month that the airline's work for ICE would help the
company expand and protect jobs.
“We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic," said Levy, an
airline industry veteran with previous stints as a senior executive at
United and Allegiant airlines.
Avelo did not grant an interview request from The Associated Press.
Financial and other details of the Avelo agreement — including
destinations of the deportation flights — haven’t publicly surfaced. The
AP asked Avelo and ICE for a copy of the agreement, but neither provided
the document. The airline said it wasn’t authorized to release the
contract.
Several consumer brands have shunned being associated with deportations,
a highly volatile issue that could drive away customers. During Trump's
first term, authorities housed migrant children in hotels, prompting
some hotel chains to say that they wouldn't participate.
Union cites safety concerns
Many companies in the deportation business, such as detention center
providers The Geo Group and Core Civic, rely little on consumer
branding. Not Avelo, whose move inspired the boycott petition on
change.org and drew criticism from the carrier's flight attendants
union, which cited the difficulty of evacuating deportees from an
aircraft in an emergency within the federal standard of 90 seconds or
less.
“Having an entire flight of people handcuffed and shackled would hinder
any evacuation and risk injury or death,” the Association of Flight
Attendants-CWA said in a statement. “It also impedes our ability to
respond to a medical emergency, fire on board, decompression, etc. We
cannot do our jobs in these conditions.”
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Passengers walk in front of Mesa Gateway Airport, where Avelo
Airlines started making deportation flights on behalf of the federal
government on Monday, May 12, 2025, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D.
Franklin)
In New Haven, Connecticut, where Avelo flies out of Tweed New Haven
Airport, Democratic Mayor Justin Elicker urged Avelo’s CEO to
reconsider. “For a company that champions themselves as ‘New Haven’s
hometown airline,’ this business decision is antithetical to New Haven’s
values,” Elicker said in a statement.
Protests were held outside airports in Arizona and Connecticut on
Monday.
In Mesa, over 30 protesters gathered on a road leading up to the
airport, holding signs that denounced Trump’s deportation efforts. In
Connecticut, about 150 people assembled outside Tweed New Haven Airport,
calling on travelers to boycott Avelo.
John Jairo Lugo, co-founder and community organizing director of Unidad
Latina en Acción in New Haven, said protesters hope to create a
financial incentive for Avelo to back out of its work for the federal
government.
“We need to cause some economical damage to the company to really
convince them that they should be on the side with the people and not
with the government,” Lugo said.
Mesa is one of five hubs for ICE airline deportation operations
Mesa, a Phoenix suburb with about 500,000 people, is one of five hubs
for ICE Air, the immigration agency's air transport operation for
deportations. ICE Air operated nearly 8,000 flights in a 12-month period
through April, according to the advocacy group Witness at the Border.
ICE contracts with an air broker, CSI Aviation, that hires two charter
carriers -- GlobalX and Eastern Air Express -- to do most of the
flights, said Tom Cartwright, who tracks flight data for Witness at the
Border.
Cartwright said it was unusual in recent years for commercial passenger
carriers to carry out deportation flights.
“It’s always been with an air broker who then hires the carriers, and
the carriers have not been regular commercial carriers, or what I call
retail carriers, who are selling their own tickets,” Cartwright said.
“At least since I have been involved (in tracking ICE flights), they’ve
all been charter companies.”
Avelo will be a sub-carrier under a contract held by New Mexico-based
CSI Aviation, which didn’t respond to questions about how much money
Avelo would make under the agreement.
Avelo provides passenger service to more than 50 cities in the U.S., as
well as locations in Jamaica, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Avelo
does not operate regular commercial passenger service out of Mesa
Gateway Airport, said airport spokesman Ryan Smith.
In February 2024, Avelo said it had its first profitable quarter, though
it didn't provide details. In an interview two months later with the AP,
Levy declined to provide numbers, saying the airline was a private
company and had no need to provide that information publicly. ___
Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut,
contributed to this report.
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