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In a memo to staff on October 30, Avelo Airlines’ head of flight operations Scott Hall painted a rosy, if defensive, picture of the company’s future. Avelo’s financial strategy was working, he said. The company had a big contract from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to do charter deportation flights, and despite some bumps, the future was bright. They had just hired more pilots and couldn’t buy aircraft fast enough to keep pace with demand.
Sure, shutting down their entire West Coast operation looked bad, but it was good, actually, a long-planned move toward efficiency that had nothing to do with the “outrage mob” boycotting Avelo for its association with ICE. In any case, Hall said, the boycott movement was fading.
The truth is much more bleak: Avelo’s ICE flights appear to be a fiasco, defined by the poor planning, cruel treatment, and serious safety lapses endemic to “ICE Air,” the network of charter carriers and military planes that transport shackled migrants to detention facilities and out of the country. Just this past week, a mid-flight emergency loss of cabin pressure left six people injured.
Plus, according to Hall himself, the longest government shutdown in history was hindering the very thing Avelo went to ICE for in the first place: cash flow.
This story is based on public statements, flight data, internal messages, and interviews with activists and current and former Avelo employees. Media representatives for Avelo, ICE, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to a detailed list of questions about the incidents described.
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