Avelo Airlines, the only commercial carrier believed to have been operating full deportation flights on a regular basis for the Trump administration, is ending its relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and will no longer charter those deportations.
The budget carrier signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security in April 2025 to operate ICE flights out of Arizona, drawing immediate protests and calls to boycott.
At the time, the airline acknowledged the decision may be controversial but said it was expected to support company expansion and job protection. However, after less than a year since inking the deal, Avelo has admitted that the program became too costly and complex to continue.
CEO Andrew Levy acknowledged the backlash in an email to employees late Tuesday.
“We moved a portion of our fleet into a government program which promised more financial stability but placed us in the center of a political controversy,” Levy wrote in the email, obtained by CNBC. “The program provided short-term benefits but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs.”
To address the financial losses, Avelo said it will cut ties with ICE and shutter its base at Mesa Gateway Airport just outside Phoenix on Jan. 27. The airline will similarly close its bases at North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham and Wilmington airports, while still flying to those cities.
The move will also lead to lead to job cuts and the cancellation of commercial flights across the board, Levy confirmed. A limited number of affected workers will be offered transfer opportunities, while customers impacted by the changes will be notified, he said.
“With the closure of the Mesa base, government flying has concluded. For the record, there was never a contract with DHS, ICE or the federal government,” company spokesperson Courtney Goff told NBC Connecticut, noting that the airline was contracted through CSI Aviation to perform the deportation flights.
After the ICE flights began in May, protests took place in a number of cities where Avelo operates, including in New Haven, Conn.
“We have friends and neighbors who have been directly impacted by deportation and detention,” Anne Watkins, an organizer with New Haven Immigrants Coalition, told the Yale Daily News last year. “We don’t want a company that is profiting directly off of those activities to be here in New Haven.”
Online activists also spammed the company’s website with phony employment applications for jobs on the deportation flights.
News of Avelo’s announcement came just hours before an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the city.
