An Avelo Airlines Boeing 737-800 aircraft, taxiing to the gate (Photo: Getty Images/Jon Tetzlaff)
Budget airline Avelo will continue operating three bases in North Carolina following plans to partner with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency (ICE) to offer deportation flights.
Avelo announced earlier this month the airline has signed a partnership for a long-term charter program with ICE.
The airline will open a base at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport (AZA) in Arizona for the ICE operations beginning May 12, according to the airline. Flights will be both domestic and international to support the deportation efforts, which Avelo crews will carry out via three dedicated Boeing 737-800 aircrafts.
These charter flights will not include commercial passengers.
“We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic,” Avelo Airlines Founder and CEO Andrew Levy said. “We also flew these charters under the Biden administration. Regardless of the administration or party affiliation, as a U.S. flag carrier when our country calls and requests assistance our practice is to say yes.”
It’s a move that’s lead to backlash and protests. More than 30,000 people have signed a petition started last week by the New Haven Immigrants Coalition in Connecticut. Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport (HVN) is the airline’s largest operating base.
In the aviation industry, a “base” is an airport at which an airline permanently houses aircraft and crew and operates routes. Low-cost carriers like Avelo tend to operate with a “point-to-point” network with bases, often at smaller airports to reduce costs.
A “hub” has more to do with an airline’s style of operations, as hub airports in the “hub-and-spoke” model are where airlines choose to connect passengers through — more common with full-service, legacy carriers and major airports.
Avelo’s three operating bases in North Carolina — located at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), Concord-Padgett Regional Airport (USA) near Charlotte, and Wilmington International Airport (ILM) — will continue to be used strictly for commercial travel, according to the airline. The agreement with ICE will not directly affect operations in North Carolina.
The airline, which had previous incarnations as charter carriers known as “Casino Express” and “Xtra Airways” was rechristened as Avelo in 2021.
Nikki Marín Baena, co-founder and co-director of the immigrant rights advocacy group Siembra NC, said the partnership could make immigrants question whether they’re safe in North Carolina.
“It just adds to that sense of stress and the sense of fear and not knowing you know what’s going to come tomorrow,” she said.
Spanish-language media outlets have covered the agreement, leading to more worries for Latino immigrants, according to Baena.
Between the three airports across the state, Avelo has plans to operate flights for more than two dozen routes from North Carolina. New additions would connect the airports with locations in Michigan, New York, and the Bahamas.
Media teams for the North Carolina airports redirected NC Newsline to Avelo.
“With this, Avelo will open a base at AZA with Avelo pilots, flight attendants and aircraft technicians, as well as appropriate local leaders. We expect to begin hiring locally for these positions immediately. Current Avelo Crewmembers (employees) will have the first option to transfer to our new AZA base,” a spokesperson for Avelo told NC Newsline in a statement.
The airline did not indicate whether any crew members from North Carolina would move to the Arizona base.
Avelo recently cancelled six flights out of Concord, WCNC reported on Friday, due to “poor performance and low bookings.”
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