Avelo Airlines is getting out of the deportation business.

The Texas-based carrier has faced sustained backlash — including in Maryland — since it began operating domestic transfer and international removal flights on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year. The move was meant to shore up the budget airline’s bottom line, according to news reports.

The airline is shutting down its Arizona base, the origin for many of its ICE flights, on Jan. 27, a company spokesperson wrote in an email confirming the end of Avelo’s participation in the Department of Homeland Security charter program.

“The program provided short term benefits but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs,” wrote company spokesperson Courtney Goff.

The airline has a small footprint at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, operating just a handful of weekly passenger flights to and from New Haven, Connecticut, and Wilmington, North Carolina. The carrier handled just over 36,000 passengers at BWI in fiscal year 2025, according to airport officials, roughly 0.14% of BWI’s overall traffic.

At least three of the company’s 21 aircraft were used for ICE charter flights all over the U.S. and to multiple countries in Latin America, according to flight-tracking technology ADS-B Exchange. As of mid-November, only one such flight had been confirmed to touch down at BWI, though ADS-B Exchange shows the same aircraft landed there Jan. 1 after leaving Arizona the previous day.

Despite Avelo’s small local presence, Marylanders rallied against the airline. Protests attracted state legislators, and Gov. Wes Moore faced loud and consistent calls to cancel BWI’s contract with the airline, a standard deal that grants Avelo use of the airport’s terminal gates and ticket counters.

Spokespeople for Moore and the Maryland Aviation Administration, which oversees BWI, could not be reached Thursday for comment.

Local advocates are hailing the news as a win.

“This is the result of tens of thousands of people organizing here and nationwide to put pressure on Avelo, airports where they operate, and local governments that host their operations,” said Ryan Harvey of the Baltimore Rapid Response Network, which organizes and connects volunteers with local labor and community groups.

“It should be a message to other private airlines that cooperation with ICE will be met with mass boycotts and protests, and it will hurt your business,” Harvey continued. “There is no excuse for human rights violations.”

Meanwhile, Goff, the Avelo spokesperson, said the company “did not see an impact regarding Customers choosing to fly Avelo.” Its 2.6 million commercial passengers last year represented 11% growth from 2024, Goff said.