Budget carrier Avelo Airlines has an expansion plan — deport migrants for ICE

Avelo Airlines is targeting a new passenger segment: migrants being sent to detention centers across the U.S. The budget carrier will also use its planes to fly migrants out of the country under the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies. 

Avelo has signed a contract with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to handle deportation flights for U.S. Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE), the company told CBS MoneyWatch. Avelo, which launched in 2021, said the move is necessary for the Houston-based airline to remain financially stable. 

“We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic,” Avelo founder and CEO Andrew Levy said in a statement to CBS News earlier this month after the company struck a deal with ICE. “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.”

The domestic and international flights ferrying migrants will begin May 14 out of a new hub at Mesa Gateway Airport in Phoenix, where Avelo will station three Boeing 737-800 planes to handle the transports. Unlike the company’s regular commercial flights, the aircraft used for the trips will not bear Avelo’s logo, the company said. 

Avelo described the agreement with ICE as a “long-term charter program.” The exact terms of the deal were not made public. 

The airline is now recruiting flight attendants to staff the flights, according to a job posting for what it calls a “charter program for the Department of Homeland Security.” The job pays $28 an hour for the first year of service. 

“We are seeking energetic, highly motivated Flight Attendants who wish to join a committed group of safety and service professionals at Avelo Airlines,” the listing reads.

“Flights will be both domestic and international trips to support DHS’s deportation efforts,” the post adds, although it makes no references to migrants.

Avelo offers flights across the U.S. and to international destinations including the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Mexico. It operates out of eight hubs across the U.S., flying out of the following airports: Concord-Padgett Regional Airport in North Carolina; Hollywood Burbank Airport in California; Lakeland International Airport in Florida; Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina; Sonoma County Airport in California; Tweed-New Haven airport in Connecticut; Wilmington Airport in New Hampshire; and Wilmington International Airport in North Carolina. 

The company previously operated charter flights as Casino Express Airlines before rebranding as Avelo in 2021, according to S&P Capital IQ.

Avelo declined to comment further on its contract with the government. DHS confirmed to CBS MoneyWatch that Avelo is contracting with ICE to assist with deportation flights. 

The Department of Homeland Security has long contracted with CSI Aviation, an aviation broker that provides private air charter services, medical flights for patients in emergencies and government flight services. Under its new contract with ICE, Avelo will operate as a sub-carrier of CSI.

DHS also subcontracts with other air charter companies, which provide planes and operate the flights. One such charter outfit is GlobalX. It handles roughly 70% of DHS’ flights, according to immigrant advocate Tom Cartwright of Witness at the Border, an activist group monitoring ICE operations.

GlobalX did not reply to a request for comment on its work with DHS.

Cartwright, who tracks ICE flights through publicly available sources, expressed surprise at Avelo agreeing to shuttle migrants destined for detention centers or deportation. 

“I have never seen a retail airline that sells to consumers being used in this way,” he told CBS MoneyWatch. “Typically, charter companies that don’t fly retail-type flights. They are not selling tickets directly to consumers.”

According to data on USAspending.gov, a U.S. government website that tracks federal spending, DHS’ roughly 6-month contract this year with CSI Aviation is worth at least $78.1 million. Its value could rise to as much as $162.2 million. 

The purpose of the agreement, the site states, “is to provide daily scheduled large aircraft & special high risk charter flights to facilitate ICE’s enforcement and removal of operations of illegal aliens.”

CSI Aviation did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment on its contract with the federal government. 

Cruising for revenue

Airline industry experts said charter outfits like CSI typically aren’t familiar to the general public. 

“Nobody has usually ever heard of the airlines,” Scott Keyes, founder of Going.com, a flight deals site, told CBS MoneyWatch. “They are charter airlines that don’t have a set schedule on a website,” he said.

However, an upstart airline hunting for additional revenue streams outside of selling tickets to members of the flying public is not unusual.

“It’s very difficult to compete with the Deltas and Uniteds of the world, so they try any number of tactics,” Keyes explained. “They fly to and from smaller cities, they offer bargain-basement prices. There are all different types of counter-positioning things they do.” 

But Avelo’s move is more surprising because most commercial airlines don’t have enough spare aircraft and crew for specialized operations like migrant flights, noted Seth Miller, founder and editor in chief of PaxEx Aero, an aviation consulting service. Miller said he opposes Avelo working with U.S. immigration authorities on ethical grounds.

Avelo’s contract with DHS is also drawing criticism from an immigrant advocacy group. A petition started by the New Haven Immigrants Coalition urging people to boycott Avelo until it severs ties with ICE has collected more than 34,650 signatures. 

“We reject the Trump Administration’s inhumane deportation practices, reject cooperation from the State of Connecticut in support of Avelo as long as they are complicit in these practices and pledge to boycott Avelo as long as they are profiting from ICE flights,” the petition states.

Although federal contracts can provide steady business for airlines and charter carriers, Avelo’s partnership with DHS poses a reputational risk, experts told CBS MoneyWatch.

“I still think it’s morally questionable to run these charters for the federal government and think it poses a very real reputational risk for Avelo,” Miller said, citing protests against the airline at some of Avelo’s hubs.

Will Humphries, a traveler at Sonoma County Airport, in Santa Rosa, California, where Avelo operates, is among those members of the flying public who plan to boycott Avelo because of its work with ICE.

“There’s not much I can do as an individual, so the limited choices I can make, like switching an airline, is definitely within my ability,” he told CBS News Bay Area.