With its last publicly-available earnings report showing a net loss of $35.6 million for the first three quarters of 2025, Houston based budget airline Avelo Airlines has spent much of this year trying to downsize by trimming its fleet of Boeing 737 planes and cutting multiple bases to which it had previously flown.
The carrier wound down its operations in Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona as well as Raleigh-Durham International Airport and Wilmington International Airport in North Carolina between January and March 2026 while concentrating its network around four core airports in the Northeast and Florida.
At the start of the year, Avelo also cut flights to international destinations such as Cancún, Montego Bay, Punta Cana as well as domestic routes between Washington Dulles and New Haven and Manchester-Boston Regional Airport from three U.S. cities.
Avelo Airlines to exit Jacksonville and Knoxville by cutting last flights
By the end of November 2026, Avelo will also exit the markets of Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) and McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) in Knoxville entirely by phasing out its last routes to the cities.
As first reported by aviation website Simple Flying, the flights from Jacksonville to Wilmington Airport (ILG) in Delaware and both Jacksonville and Knoxville from Tweed New Haven Airport (HVN) will end at some point in November 2026. The route cuts have not been formally confirmed by the airline.
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The airline first entered the Jacksonville market with a flight from Tweed New Haven in January 2025 with adding a route to Wilmington half a year later in May. Avelo has been flying to McGhee Tyson Airport from New Haven since May 2024 but has not expanded service to other cities.
Avelo Airlines launched in 2021 out of Hollywood Burbank Airport.
Image source: Shutterstock
What is happening with Avelo Airlines at the end of 2026
On its website, Avelo writes that anyone who has already purchased a ticket on a flight that will be phased out can “cancel the reservation on the impacted flight and refund your purchase to your original form of payment” if “the next available flight time is not a viable option.”
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After going through a period of rapid growth and expansion in the years immediately following its launch out of Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR) in 2021, Avelo found itself caught up in a wave of bad publicity throughout 2025 over its choice to quietly run deportation flights for the Trump administration alongside its commercial service.
Protests against the airline took place in states like Oregon, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, California, Florida, and Arizona throughout 2025 while, in January 2026, the carrier ultimately phased out its contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of its base closure at the Mesa Gateway Airport (AZA) in Phoenix.
Avelo founder and chief executive Andrew Levy had previously called running ICE flights a choice that was “controversial [but…] too valuable not to pursue.”
“These changes enable Avelo to focus on sustainably scaling five core bases in 2026 and to prepare the company for growth in the coming years, facilitated by the company’s recent order for up to 100 Embraer 195-E2 aircraft,” Avelo said in an earlier statement on past network shake-ups.
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