Airline Discovers Ethics Are Bad for Business, Cuts ICE Ties
Axios reports Avelo Airlines is cutting ties with ICE, dropping deportation flights because the 'program provided short-term benefits but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue.' Apparently, shipping desperate people across borders isn't a long-term growth strategy when pesky advocates keep pointing out the obvious moral bankruptcy. CEO Andrew Levy lamented being
'placed in the center of a political controversy,' as if forcibly removing individuals from their families was ever going to be a popular leisure activity, like flying to Disneyland. For a year, Avelo facilitated daily trauma as ICE's preferred private carrier, only backtracking when protests and bad PR became financially inconvenient. It always takes public outcry to inject a dose of humanity
into corporate calculations. Remember when airlines were just for vacations? Now they're just another cog in the dehumanization machine, until the quarterly report says otherwise.