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Four years after its public debut, Avelo Airlines is ending air service on the West Coast. The airline will end flights between Humboldt County and the Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR) on Dec. 2.

In an emailed statement shared with the Outpost, Avelo spokesperson Courtney Goff said the ultra-low-cost carrier will reduce flights out of Burbank next month before closing the base completely. “Avelo will be exiting the Eureka/Arcata market, and the last flight will be December 2. Customers have been notified about the changes to their reservations and all their refund options.”

“We will be pulling out of the West Coast completely but still operate at over 40 cities across the East Coast and internationally,” Goff continued. “Avelo has previously made several changes over the past few years to our West Coast operations to improve our financial results. Despite the investment of significant time, resources and efforts, our West Coast operations have not produced the results necessary to continue our presence there.”

As many of our readers are aware, Avelo has come under fire in recent months after it brokered a deal with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation flights out of its new hub at the Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona, sparking a nationwide boycott against the airline.

Asked whether its decision to pull out of West Coast airports had anything to do with the boycott, Goff said: “Protests nor our contract with DHS had any effect on our decision and did not impact our business.”

“This was not an easy decision,” the statement continued. “Our company’s deepest operational roots are in BUR, having launched our first flight there over four years ago during the COVID pandemic. There is rarely one singular reason why decisions like this are made, and this one is no different. We believe the continuation service from BUR in the current operating environment will not deliver adequate financial returns in a highly competitive backdrop. The aircraft in BUR are expected to support growth in our East Coast bases, where we have significantly more opportunity to continue our path to sustainable cash flow generation.”

Avelo’s last flight out of Humboldt County is Dec. 2.

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