Avelo Airlines, a New Haven-based airline and a marketing partner of the University of Connecticut, has announced that they will stop performing deportation flights for Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) and close the Mesa Gateway Airport in Phoenix, where the airline operated its deportation flights, on Jan. 27.
“Avelo will close the base at AZA on January 27 and will conclude all participation in the [Department of Homeland Security] charter program,” an Avelo statement read.
According to the statement, Avelo is halting their relationship with ICE because the program did not provide “consistent and predictable revenue.”
“The program provided short-term benefits but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs,” the statement read.
Avelo announced that they would begin flying deportation flights for ICE in April 2025. The decision faced backlash from New Haven residents, with a change.org petition for Avelo to cancel their contract with ICE receiving over 40,000 supporters.
The decision also faced backlash from Connecticut politicians, including New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, who was one of the over 40,000 supporters for the change.org petition, and Attorney General William Tong, who condemned Avelo after they refused to answer questions he posed about their relationship with ICE.
“The State of Connecticut has an obligation now to review this business decision and to consider the viability of our choice to support Avelo,” Tong said in an April press release. “I strongly encourage Avelo to reconsider its response and its decision to profit from these atrocities.”
Avelo founder and CEO Andrew Levy previously said that Avelo realizes flying deportation flights is a “sensitive and complicated topic,” but that it would “provide [Avelo] with the stability to continue expanding.”
“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,” Levy said in a statement to CBS News.
UConn Athletics entered into a marketing partnership with Avelo in 2022. Although this partnership did not involve travel, the UConn men’s basketball team flew with Avelo in 2023 and 2024 following their NCAA championship wins.
Following Avelo’s April 2025 announcement, UConn faced calls from the public to end their relationship with Avelo. A change.org petition titled “UConn Must Stop Its Partnership With Avelo” received over 750 supporters.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, The Daily Campus acquired multiple emails from members of the public to UConn officials asking them to end the university’s relationship with Avelo. Three members of the public confirmed that they never received a response from the university.
Vice President for Communications Michael Kirk said in September that he would “prefer not to respond” to people who wrote to the board of trustees about UConn’s relationship with Avelo in an email acquired through the FOIA request.