Avelo Airlines got a warm welcome from travelers and politicians in Connecticut when the budget carrier brought nonstop flights to Tweed New Haven Airport.
But that reception has turned chilly after Avelo announced a contract to begin operating deportation flights for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) starting next month. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the New Haven, Conn., airport this month to denounce the move.
"To the president of Avelo: You really stepped in it," Richard Blumenthal, the state's senior U.S. senator, said at one of those protests. "You made a bad mistake."
Facing financial headwinds, Avelo struck a long-term deal to work with ICE. The company says three of its planes will begin operating charter flights for ICE based out of Mesa, Ariz., starting May 12.
"We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic," founder and CEO Andrew Levy said in an emailed statement to NPR. "After significant deliberations, we determined this charter flying will provide us with the stability to continue expanding our core scheduled passenger service and keep our more than 1,100 Crewmembers employed for years to come."
But the budget carrier now faces a growing backlash, especially at its Connecticut hub.
"It's outrageous," said John Lugo, an activist from New Haven who helped organize the airport protests. "Right now, they are going to be making profits by deporting people back to their countries."
Avelo will join a small fleet of ICE Air Operations carriers that operate these flights, which immigration authorities rarely publicize.
"There is no transparency, and that's by design," said 71-year-old Tom Cartwright, a former banking executive turned volunteer activist. Cartwright started tracking ICE Air Operations using public flight-tracking data during the first Trump administration. He has now become the go-to source for information about ICE flights.
Between eight and 10 ICE-contracted planes a day carry passengers in shackles and leg chains, Cartwright said, both inside the U.S. and on deportation flights around the globe.
Cartwright says the number of deportation flights has stayed roughly constant since President Trump has returned to office. ICE has ramped up arrests and removals in the interior of the country — but with fewer migrants crossing the border illegally, the number of overall deportations has not changed significantly.
ICE Air Operations has worked roughly the same way under administrations of both major parties.
The main contractor, CSI Aviation Inc., earns hundreds of millions of dollars a year from its contract with the Department of Homeland Security, though the financial and operational details have not been made public.
The airlines that operate these flights for ICE are mostly subcontractors, Cartwright says — usually private charter airlines that fly for many different clients.
"They might fly an ICE flight today, and they might take somebody to the Masters Tournament tomorrow. That's just the way they operate," he said.
But Cartwright says Avelo is a different case. It's a regular retail airline that flies to dozens of cities and sells tickets directly to the public.
"So it's quite different," Cartwright said. "And I think they underestimated the public outcry, to be honest, that might come from this."
The outcry has been especially loud in Connecticut, where Avelo has a major hub and where Democratic elected leaders were already furious about the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
The state's attorney general, William Tong, has demanded to see Avelo's contract with the Department of Homeland Security.
"The state of Connecticut should not support and should not be a partner to an airline that assists this administration in its unlawful and unconstitutional actions," Tong said in a video posted on Instagram.
If Avelo doesn't change course, Tong says, state lawmakers should revoke the support they've given the airline, including a tax break on jet fuel that's set to expire this summer.
Connecticut Public reporter Eddy Martinez and WSHU reporter Carter Dewees contributed to this story.
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