Launched in 2021 out of Houston, budget airline Avelo Airlines almost immediately found a strong market serving secondary cities and offering routes whose traffic levels are not high enough to be picked up by main airlines.
As of earlier this year, it had been flying to 48 domestic destinations and five international ones.
Avelo Airlines has also run into protest and controversy in its decision to conduct deportation flights for the federal government.
CEO Andrew Levy had in May 2025 said that using three of the airline’s Boeing 737-800s (BA) planes to transport individuals detained by ICE amid President Donald Trump’s anti-migrant crackdown is an “opportunity […] too valuable not to pursue.”
Throughout the spring and early summer, protests against the airline have periodically taken place in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, California, Florida, and Arizona.
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Avelo ‘closing the base’, pulling out of popular market
While the airline has stood firm on the type of contracts it chooses to fulfill, Avelo Airlines independently announced that it will be exiting the Las Vegas market. The last flight to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) will run on Aug. 11 as the carrier axes flights to the city from Sonoma, California and Redmond, Oregon.
The carrier is similarly shutting down its base Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR) and so significantly reducing its operations on the West Coast.
Avelo also announced that it will pull flights out of Charles M. Schulz Airport (STS) in Sonoma County back in May.
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An Avelo spokesperson said that the airline would be “closing the base” because it was found not to be able to “deliver adequate financial returns in a highly competitive backdrop.”
“Despite the investment of significant time, resources and efforts, our West Coast operations have not produced the results necessary to continue our presence there,” spokesperson Courtney Goff further said in a statement.
Avelo Airlines launched out of Houston in 2021.
Image source: Shutterstock
As Avelo exits new markets, stigma of deportation flights sticks
Avelo also told several outlets that the exits are not influenced by protests or politics but rather low demand for its service in these specific markets.
“There is rarely one singular reason why decisions like this are made, and this one is no different,” Levy said in a news release.
That said, the impact of its deportation flights have done much damage to how it is perceived by its customers.
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“Avelo Airlines likes to advertize that it will seat families together on flights, but in reality, they are helping to facilitate breaking up families,” Rachel Barnhart, a lawmaker in New York’s Monroe County, said at an April 17 protest in Rochester.
Just two days after Avelo announced the cancellations, low-cost competitor Breeze announced that it would pick up routes abandoned by Avelo with a spate of new flights from both Burbank and Redmond.
The new flights include ones to Provo in Utah, Eugene in Oregon, as well as Las Vegas.
The new routes will also start running in March 2026 at lower capacities than what was previously offered by Avelo. However, the flights will still end up pulling over a large chunk of customers who will fly with any airline that serves their smaller cities.
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