Phoenix (AP) – a budget airline that serves mostly small cities in the United States, has launched federal deportation flights on Monday from Arizona, a move that inspired an online petition for a boycott and sharp criticism of the Union, representing the carrier’s stewards.
Avelo Airlines announced in April that he had signed an agreement with the Ministry of Homeland Security to make flights to deport charter from Mesa Gateway Airport outside Phoenix. It says he will use three Boeing 737-800 aircraft for flights.
Houston -based airline is among many companies who want to make money in President Donald Trump’s campaign for mass deportations.
Congress discussions began last month on a tax account for funding, in part, the removal of 1 million immigrants a year and the accommodation of 100,000 people in US detention centers. The GOP plan calls for the hiring of 10,000 more employees and investigators of US immigration and customs executives.
Details of Avelo’s Avelo agreement are not revealed
Avelo started in 2021, as Covid-19 still rages billions of taxpayers dollars prompt large airlines. It saves the money mainly by flying the older Boeing 737 Jets, which can be purchased at relatively low prices. And it works from less crowded and less expensive secondary airports, flying routes, which are ignored by large airlines. It says he has his first winning neighborhood at the end of 2023.
Andrew Levy, founder and CEO of Avelo, said the agreement announced last month that the operation of the airline for ICE would help the company expand and protect jobs.
“We are aware that this is a sensitive and complex topic,” says Levy, a veteran of the airline industry with previous stay as a senior CEO at UNITED and Allegiant Airlines.
Avelo did not apply for an interview with the Associated Press.
Financial and other details of the Avelo Agreement – including deportment flight destinations – did not appear publicly. The AP requested Avelo and ice for a copy of the agreement, but none of them provided the document. The airline said it was not authorized to release the contract.
Several user brands have diverted to connect with deportations, a highly variable problem that can banish customers. During the first Trump term of office, the authorities housed children migrants in hotels, prompting some hotel chains to say that they would not participate.
The Union quotes safety concerns
Many deportation companies, such as the providers of the Georgi group and Core Civic, rely on the brand of consumers. Not Avelo, whose move inspired the Change.org boycott and has sparked criticism from the Union of Carrier’s employees who cite the difficulty of evacuating an airplane deported in the Federal Standard for 90 seconds or less.
“The presence of a whole flight from people with handcuffs and chained would prevent any evacuation and injury to risk or death,” a statement of the Association of Stewardas-CWA said. “It also prevents our ability to respond to emergency medical care, a fire on board, decompression, etc. we cannot do our jobs in these conditions.”
In New Haven, Connecticut, where Avelo flew out of Tweed New Haven Airport, Mayor of Democratic Justin Elicker called on Avelo CEO to review. “For a company that champions as a” New Haven Native Airline “, this business solution is antithetic to New Haven’s values,” Elik said in a statement.
The protests were held outside the Arizona airports and Connecticut on Monday.
In meat, over 30 protesters gathered on the road leading to the airport, holding signs that denied Trump’s deportation efforts. In Connecticut, about 150 people gathered outside the Tweed New Have airport, calling on travelers to boycott Avello.
John Jairo Lugo, the co -founder and director of the Unidad Latina En Acción Community Organization in New Haven, said protesters hoped to create a financial incentive for Avello to give up their work for the federal government.
“We have to cause some economic damage to the company to really convince them that they must be away with people, not with the government,” Lugo said.
MESA is one of the five ICE Airline deportation operations centers
Meat, a Phoenix suburb of about 500,000 people, is one of the five ice air centers, the air transport operation of the Immigration Agency for deportation. Ice air operated nearly 8,000 flights for a 12-month period until April, according to a witness to the border intercession group.
ICE negotiates with an air broker, CSI Aviation, which hires two charter carriers – Globalx and Eastern Air Express – to make most flights, said Tom Cartrait, who tracks the fields of border witness fields.
Cartwright has said it is unusual in recent years of commercial passenger carriers to make departing flights.
“He was always with an air broker who then hired the carriers, and the carriers were not regular sales carriers or what I call retail carriers who sell their own tickets,” Cartrait said. “At least after I participated (when tracking ice flights), they were all charter companies.”
Avelo will be a contract sub-bearer held by New Mexico-based CSI aviation, which did not answer questions about how much money Avelo will make under the agreement.
Avelo provides passenger services to more than 50 cities in the United States, as well as places in Jamaica, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Avelo does not work regular commercial service for passengers from Mesa Gateway Airport, said airport spokesman Ryan Smith.
In February 2024, Avelo said he had his first winning neighborhood, although he did not provide details. In an interview two months later with AP, Levy refused to provide the number, stating that the airline was a private company and did not need to provide this information publicly. ___ The writer of the Associated Press Susan Hi in Hartford, Connecticut, has contributed to this report.