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struggle4progress

(123,044 posts)
Wed Apr 30, 2025, 04:34 PM Wednesday

Avelo faces backlash for deportation flights

April 30, 20253:08 PM ET
Joel Rose

Avelo Airlines got a warm welcome from travelers and politicians in Connecticut when the budget carrier brought non-stop flights to Tweed New Haven Airport.

But that reception has turned chilly after Avelo announced a contract to begin operating deportation flights for U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE starting next month. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the New Haven airport earlier this month to denounce the move.

"To the president of Avelo: You really stepped in it," Richard Blumenthal, the state's senior U.S. Senator, said at one of those protests. "You made a bad mistake" ...

Between 8 and 10 ICE contracted planes a day carry passengers in shackles and leg chains, Cartwright said, both inside the U.S. and on deportation flights around the globe ...

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/30/g-s1-63572/avelo-airlines-deportation-flights-backlash

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dem4decades

(12,721 posts)
1. New Haven has bent over backwards for Avelo, why?
Wed Apr 30, 2025, 04:44 PM
Wednesday

What exactly does New Haven gain from Avelo being at Tweed Airport? The neighborhood hates them, Democrats now hate them. I won't fly with them.

LauraInLA

(1,831 posts)
3. For anyone in the Los Angeles area, they fly out of Burbank and there are many protests scheduled ;)
Wed Apr 30, 2025, 05:58 PM
Wednesday

LetMyPeopleVote

(162,487 posts)
5. Protests are breaking out across the U.S. against Avelo Airlines after it agreed to help the administration carry out de
Wed Apr 30, 2025, 06:54 PM
Wednesday

Protests are breaking out across the U.S. against Avelo Airlines after it agreed to help the administration carry out deportations.



https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/avelo-airlines-protests-trump-deportation-flights-rcna203762

Earlier this month, dozens of people gathered at an airport in New Haven, Connecticut, to protest a small budget airline called Avelo. The company, which markets itself as a consumer airline for the general public, recently signed a contract with the Trump administration for the use of its planes, flight attendants and everything else for deportation flights......

When it comes to the principle of the matter here — when it comes to the Trump administration’s mass deportation program and locking people up indefinitely in a foreign prison without any opportunity to contest the allegations against them — it is one thing to engage with this as a member of the public. When it comes to the public, you can see from the polling, the protests and the signs people are holding on street corners, that they are repulsed by what Trump is doing and the way he is treating immigrants and the way he is handling deportations. Among the public, there is a big national backlash against that......

Avelo responded by not answering any of those questions. Instead, the airline told Connecticut’s attorney general that he has a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the situation and advised him that if he wants a copy of its contract with the Trump administration, he is welcome to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the government.

The airline did, however, add this: “Avelo remains committed to public safety and the rule of law, as evidenced by our public, continuous, and persistent compliance with all federal regulations governing commercial air travel in the United States.”

In a statement, Tong called Avelo’s letter “insulting and condescending to the people of Connecticut who have invested in and committed millions of dollars to Avelo’s success.”

“What’s more, telling the Office of the Attorney General to pound sand and to ask the Department of Homeland Security for a copy of their contract through FOIA is a callous back-of-the-hand that shows they really don’t care what we think,” Tong wrote. “It is clear all they intend to do is take state support and make money off other people’s suffering.”
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