In the four years since its first flight, Abelo has gained loyal customers by serving small cities such as New Haven, Connecticut and Burbank, California.
Now it has a new, very different business line. He is implementing deportation flights for the Trump administration.
Despite weeks of protests from clients and elected officials, it appears to have departed from Mesa, Arizona on Monday morning.
According to Flightaware, the plane is expected to arrive at Alexandria International Airport in Louisiana early afternoon. Avelo declined to comment on the flight, and ICE did not respond to requests for multiple comments.
The airline's decision to support President Trump's efforts to accelerate the deportation of immigrants is unusual and dangerous. ICE outsources many flights, but is usually run by lesser known charter airlines. Commercial personnel usually avoid this type of work, challenging politics and not disrupt customers and employees.
The risk for Avelo is even greater as the majority of its flights take off from either land or from cities that are far less likely to support progressive or Trump's hard-hit immigration policies. More than 90% of airline flights arrived or departed from coastal states last year, according to airline data company Cirium. One in four flew to New Haven.
“It's really difficult and really dangerous,” said Allison Taylor, a professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, focusing on corporate ethics and responsibility. “The headlines of this and the general human aspects aren't working very well.”
But Avelo, backed by private investors and run by executives from large airlines, is struggling financially.
The airline founder and CEO Andrew Levy said last month that airline founder and CEO Andrew Levy said the airline founder and CEO Andrew Levy was too good to pass on as the money the company is supposed to make from ice flights is too good. He said the flights will help stabilize Abelo's finances, especially near New Haven, where Yale's home and where the airline operates more than a dozen flights a day.
“After extensive deliberations between the board and senior leaders, we concluded that this new opportunity is worthwhile to pursue,” Levy wrote in an email on April 3rd.
The military will carry out several deportations, but the ice is heavily dependent on civil airlines. There is little public information about these flights. This is mainly being placed through broker CSI Aviation, said Tom Cartwright, a retired bank executive who has been tracking flights for years as a volunteer for border witnesses, an immigration rights group. He said most are run by two small charter airlines, GlobalX Air and Eastern Air Express.
GlobalX began operations in 2021 and runs flights for the federal government, university basketball teams, casinos, tour operators and more. It grew rapidly last year, bringing in $220 million in revenue, but is still not profitable. This year, it operates deportation flights to Brazil and El Salvador. Eastern Air Express is part of Eastern Airlines, a private company.
GlobalX and Eastern Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.
Contracts for such flights provide consistent revenues for airlines, and businesses are far less vulnerable to changing economic conditions than traditional passenger flights. Cartwright's count based on a variety of sources has led to ICE running around 8,000 flights per year, which ended in April, most of which took place within the US. Federal government data shows that CSI Aviation alone has been awarded hundreds of millions of dollars of ICE contracts in recent years.
Last month, Abelo's decision to take part in these flights was met with a quick backlash.
Within days of Levy's internal announcement, the New Haven Immigrants Union, a collection of groups that support immigration rights, launched a campaign to pressure Abelo to drop flights. The online petition launched by the Union has received over 37,000 signatures. There have also been protests near airports in Connecticut, Delaware, California and Florida provided by Abelo.
Democrat governors of Connecticut and Delaware have denounced Abelo, while lawmakers in Connecticut and New York have announced proposals to withdraw state support, including tax cuts on jet fuel purchases, from companies using ICE.
Connecticut Democratic Attorney General William Tonn called for Levy's answer to the federal government. In a statement last month, Ton called Levi's response “inhumousness and condescending.”
The Flight Crew CWA Association, a union representing 20 Airlines flight attendants, including Abelo, raised concerns. The union said immigrants were detained for being deported by the Trump administration, making it more difficult for flight attendants to work.
“Having all flights of people who are handcuffed and bound would prevent evacuation and risk injuries and death,” the union said in a statement. “It also prevents us from our ability to respond to medical emergencies, firing onboard, decompression, etc. We cannot work under these conditions.”
Avelo said it will use three Boeing 737-800 jets to operate flights in the US and overseas under its deal with ICE. To handle these flights, the airline opened a base at Mesa Gateway Airport and began hiring pilots, flight attendants and other staff.
In a statement, United Airlines' former top executive, Allegiant Air, said the airline had not underestimated the contract.
“We recognize that this is a delicate and complicated topic,” he said. “After significant deliberations, we have determined that this charter flying will continue to expand our core scheduled passenger service and provide stability to employ more than 1,100 crew members for the next few years.”
The Houston-based airline said it had run similar flights for the Biden administration. “When our country calls, our practice is to say yes,” he said in another statement.
In an email last month, Levy celebrated the fact that Abelo was nearly broken even in 2024, losing just $500,000 with revenue of $310 million. However, he said airlines need to raise more money from investors. Performance has been struggling with this year as consumer confidence wanes nationwide and airlines face increasing competition.
Avelo was seeking revenue “we are immune from these issues,” Levy said in an email, pursuing charter flights, including the federal government. To accommodate ice flights, the airline has also reduced its presence at the Santa Rosa, California airport.
Abelo raised more than $190 million, according to Pitchbook. Levi's email said the airline would like to secure new funds this summer.
