Nathaniel Rosenberg Photos
Hope Chávez: "There's always something you can do."
Pastor Jack: "We should all be outraged by this outrage [of deportations]."
Tweed’s board chair doesn’t plan on boycotting Avelo Airlines — as he seeks to stay away from a deportation-contract controversy he said the airport has no control over.
Robert Reed, the chair of the airport authority’s board of directors, presented that bid for neutrality after activists turned out to the board’s latest monthly meeting to press the agency to take a stand against the airport’s busiest flyer.
That meeting took place Wednesday evening at the Morris Cove airport offices at 155 Burr St.
Reed also said it’s business as usual for Tweed New Haven Airport, despite a fast-growing online boycott of Avelo Airlines, the airport’s flagship airline, for its decision to run deportation flights for the Trump administration.
He said that the airport has not yet seen a direct impact from efforts to boycott Avelo, despite the grassroots petition that has now surpassed 33,500 signatures. At the same time, Reed acknowledged he is worried about the potential effects of a boycott on the airport, given that Avelo serves between 80 and 90 percent of the passengers flying in and out of Tweed every month.
The ongoing political firestorm over Avelo’s decision to contract with the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to charter deportation flights out of a new base in Mesa, Ariz., loomed large over the normally sleepy monthly meeting.
The decision, which Avelo CEO Andrew Levy has defended as a way to offset financial troubles at the company, has faced public condemnations from Mayor Justin Elicker, the Board of Alders, and New Haven State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney. It has also sparked a war of words (and Freedom of Information Act requests) between Avelo CEO Andrew Levy and state Attorney General William Tong.
During the public comment section of Wednesday’s meeting, Hope Chávez, an organizer with the New Haven Immigrants Coalition, laid out a series of demands for Reed and the board, including signing on to the petition to boycott Avelo, facilitating a meeting between organizers and Levy, and supporting efforts to eliminate tax breaks the budget airline receives on aviation fuel.
“I invite you to take this opportunity to protect the bottom line and to protect the ethics of what it means to be a New Havener, to be part of Tweed, to be a part of this beautiful community,” Chávez told the board.
After the meeting, Reed said that the airport authority will not be weighing in on the efforts to pressure Avelo to cancel its deportation contract, because the airport authority has no role in the agreement.
“That is a contract between Avelo and the federal government. … We have no contractual agreements, we have no influence over that contract,” Reed said. “We’re neutral. We are not going to take a position we have no influence over.”
In 2022, the Airport Authority agreed to a 43-year lease of the airport with management company Avports, which runs Tweed’s operations. Avports has a contract with Avelo as one of the airlines that fly out of the airport.
The public testimonies Wednesday calling on board members to take a stand against the future deportation flights stretched all the way to Arizona. Erica Viola, a Mesa native, called in to the meeting to warn attendees of the impact the deportation flights will have nationwide, citing examples of the Trump administration using deportation as a tool to separate families and deporting people by mistake.
“I know that you don’t have power to change this,” Viola said. “But I do hope that you all really align yourselves with airlines that are humane, airlines that are not allowing for the government to mistreat immigrants.
Other speakers found inspiration in the season, with Pastor Jack Perkins Davidson of Spring Glen Church in Hamden referencing the Easter holiday in his appeal to board members.
“This week we’ll be retelling the Easter story, which is the story about an innocent man who was unjustly condemned by a racist empire,” Perkins Davidson said. “I hope I don’t have to justify for you why it is a call in our faith life to care about these unjust deportations, these unjust condemnations of people without due process who are pulled off the street simply because of their name or the color of their skin or the language that they’re speaking.”
At the end of the meeting, attendees passed out flyers advertising a protest scheduled for Thursday afternoon at Tweed.
Board Chair Reed: “We’re neutral. We are not going to take a position we have no influence over.”