A letter to the airline from Connecticut’s attorney general cited ProPublica’s reporting on ICE Air flight attendants, who said it was unclear how shackled detainees would get off a plane in an emergency.

In an April 3 email to Avelo employees obtained by ProPublica and other publications, CEO Andrew Levy called the deportation contract “too valuable not to pursue” at a time when his startup was losing money and consumer confidence was declining, leading Americans to take fewer trips. Avelo would close one of its bases, in Sonoma County, California, and move certain flight routes to off-peak days as resources shifted to ICE Air. Deportation flights would be based out of Mesa, Arizona, and would begin in May.

Avelo has a major hub in New Haven, Connecticut, and it recently expanded to Bradley International Airport near Hartford. In 2023, the airline won a two-year fuel-tax moratorium from state lawmakers after extensive lobbying.

The backlash comes after Texas-based Avelo signed an agreement early this month to dedicate three of its 20 planes to carrying out deportation flights as part of the charter network known as ICE Air. It also follows a report by ProPublica, which Connecticut Attorney General William Tong cited in an April 8 letter to Avelo, revealing flight attendants’ unease over the treatment and safety of detainees on such flights. The concerns airline staffers raised included how difficult it could be to evacuate people wearing wrist and ankle shackles.

“Can Avelo confirm that it will never operate flights while non-violent passengers are in shackles, handcuffs, waist chains and/or leg irons?” Tong’s April 8 letter asks. “Can Avelo confirm that it will never operate a flight without a safe and timely evacuation strategy for all passengers?”

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250430113842/https://www.propublica.org/article/avelo-airlines-ice-air-connecticut

  • FirstCircle@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    4 hours ago

    how difficult it could be to evacuate people wearing wrist and ankle shackles

    No need to worry about such niceties once it’s openly admitted that these are just Death Flights in disguise. Murder the prisoners in mid-flight, or hand them over for murder after landing, the results are the same.

    Republicans/MAGA have long loved the idea of Death Flights. MAGA Warms to a Murderous Chilean Dictator

  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
    0·
    8 hours ago

    In an April 3 email to Avelo employees obtained by ProPublica and other publications, CEO Andrew Levy called the deportation contract “too valuable not to pursue”

    Just like all the German corporations involved in the Holocaust: “We can’t not participate in industrial-scale murder when there’s money to be made.” Capitalists find it very easy to become Nazis when it will pay.