As budget carrier Avelo Airlines continues to operate deportation flights on behalf of the US Department of Homeland Security, it has taken the unusual step of painting the Boeing 737 aircraft it uses for these flights all white. What has driven Avelo’s decision to paint over its own colorful livery on these aircraft?

Avelo Paints 737 Aircraft White That It Is Using For Deportation Flights

As flagged by One Mile At A Time, Avelo appears to have painted at least one and possibly all three of the 737 aircraft it now bases at Arizona’s Mesa Gateway Airport (AZA) and uses to transport illegal aliens out of the United States under the direction of DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division.

For example, N804VL recently spent a week in Dothan, Alabama (DHN) where it presumably underwent the paint job.

There is no requirement that these aircraft be painted white or at least remove the airline livery. For example, GlobalX also operates deportation flights and yet has not repainted its aircraft (the video below was shared by President Trump).

So why would Avelo paint its aircraft? Is it because it is ashamed of operating these flights, as One Mile At A Time suggests?

I tend to think that is the most likely reason. After all, the airline went to extraordinary lengths to block a billboard outside Tweed New Haven Regional Airport (HVN) and now faces a lawsuit over whether its actions constituted an unlawful attempt to squelch free speech.

> Read More: Avelo Airlines Sued By Aviation Blogger Turned Pol Over Billboards Attacking ICE Deportation Flights

Some have alleged that Avelo had to do this to protect itself from vandalism, the sort of vandalism that many Tesla owners have faced in recent months, but that strikes me as less plausible since aircraft are on located on the secure side of airport fencing. Furthermore, deportees are led onto aircraft in shackles (an impetus for the campaign against Avelo’s decision to offer deportation flights in the first place).

Ultimately, this strikes me as a cowardly move: you either own up to running these flights or don’t run them at all. Avelo is in the business to make money and saw an opportunity that it felt it could not turn down despite some public pushback. By trying to hide it (by suppressing the billboard and now suppressing aircraft liveries), it only brings further attention to it…a perfect example of the Streisand Effect.

I think Americans can reasonably agree that illegal aliens who commit crime while in this country should be swiftly removed…but that rounding up people and sending them out without a hearing is not only cause for concern, but runs against our laws…and when you look beyond the headlines into individual cases, there have been some very questionable deportations.

That strikes me as the reason people are opposed to Avelo operating these flights: not because they are pro-illegal immigration or anti-Trump, but because they are “law and order” folks who believe in the rule of law, even if the wheels of justice move slowly. That includes adequate safeguards to ensure that folks are not deported for crimes they did not commit or associations they took no part in.

What do you think about the Avelo livery issue?