Earlier this year, Texas-based Avelo Airlines began contracting with U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement to operate deportation flights out of the United States. While there is no indication any of these flights are originating from Albany International Airport, several advocates and lawmakers have launched efforts to ground Avelo’s Capital Region operations. However, not everyone agrees with these efforts.
Leyla Kiosse is the operational lead for Indivisible Albany, the main local advocacy group pushing for Avelo’s departure. She says although Avelo does not directly carry deportation flights out of New York state, the company’s broader actions directly impact Albany.
“It’s important that they leave, because Avelo receives benefits from operating out of the Albany County airport,” said Kiosse. “A company that is complicit with the destruction of democracy, with the destruction of constitutional rights that people have in this country, should not be entitled to the benefit of a community that they’re dismantling, essentially.”…