ICE Air: US Government Moves Forward With Deportation “Airline” Concept, But The Details Are Odd
Trump is getting back into the airline business, though this time, with a different kind of “Trump Shuttle.” While we first learned about these plans last year, more information has just been released, thanks to a new tender that has been put out to aviation companies in support of this project.
ICE acquiring its own fleet of planes for deportations
For years, the United States has contracted out to airlines for operating deportation flights. In recent years, airlines performing these flights have included Avelo Air, Eastern Air Express, GlobalX Air, Omni Air International, and World Atlantic Airlines. This is a lucrative arrangement for those airlines, and also gives them a steady income stream.
The Trump administration is of course trying to greatly increase the number of deportations. Trump has vowed to deport one million undocumented immigrations per year, and in his first year in office, ICE deported somewhere around 400,000 undocumented immigrants.
This means that if Trump wants to reach that “goal,” the administration needs to greatly step up its number of deportations. So in the summer of 2025, we learned how former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was pushing for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to own and operate its own fleet of airplanes for deportations, with the goal of doubling the number of people that can be deported each month.
In late 2025 we learned how this was coming to fruition, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agreed to buy six Boeing 737-700s at a cost of $140 million, in order to increase deportation efforts. Interestingly, these planes were actually purchased from Avelo, which then ended its own deportation flying.
With Noem having been fired from her post and having been replaced by Markwayne Mullin, there has been the question of whether the “ICE Air” concept would still happen. We’ve now learned that this still is in the cards, and the plan is for the operation to launch by July 2027 at the latest.
The idea is that this operation would launch with six Boeing 737-700s and two Gulfstream G650ERs (referred to as C-37Bs in the government configuration), and that the fleet of planes would support deportation operations, emergency response missions, and high risk charter operations.
Currently, ICE charters 8-14 planes at a time for deportation flights, which allows for roughly 15,000 deportations per month. So by acquiring planes, ICE will be able to increase the number of people that it deports. As ICE increases the number of people it detains, more deportation flights are needed to avoid overcrowding in detention centers.
Of course buying aircraft requires a big investment, though Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” greatly increased funding for ICE. The bill gave ICE over $75 billion in funding, including $30 billion for deportation efforts, greatly increasing the previous $9.5 billion annual budget.
It’s suggested that the average deportation flight costs around $25,000 per hour, including the cost of the plane, pilots, flight attendants, security personnel, and medical personnel. So the average deportation trip cost is somewhere around $100,000 to $200,000.
Is there merit to the government starting this “airline?”
There’s no point in debating Trump’s deportation efforts, because we all have our own (typically strong) opinions on that, and I don’t think anyone is going to have their opinions changed in the comments section. So let’s stick to the aviation angle.
With that in mind, if the government is going to deport people, is it more beneficial to outsource the flying, or for the government to actually get into the “airline” business?
Here’s what makes this strange — at first, I assumed that this fleet of planes would be flown directly by the government, but the update is that the DHS is seeking contractors to actually operate these flights. The idea is that the contractors for this operation would provide the crews, including pilots and flight attendants, as well as security and medical personnel.
The DHS insists that having this “airline” will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, but I’m struggling to understand where the efficiencies will come form, when you’re still hiring contractors to actually operate the flights with the government’s aircraft? Airlines are generally pretty efficient businesses, and it’s not like the margins they’re skimming on these charters are huge. I have to imagine that if the government gets involved, there’s some loss in efficiency, or at least not massive gains.
Also, it’s surprising to me how the belief is that the deportation effort bottleneck somehow comes down to lack of available aircraft that can be contracted. You’d think there would be endless spare capacity, as this provides a consistent income stream for a willing operator.
For that matter, by using charter operators, it’s easy enough to adjust capacity over time, to reflect demand, which is much harder to do if you actually buy planes. If we’re to believe that the undocumented immigration situation will change materially, and if our “borders are now closed,” then presumably at some point there would also be a decrease in the number of people who the government needs to deport?
Lastly, it’s worth noting that this isn’t the first “airline” that the US government is operating. The Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS) is a United States Marshals Service airline that transports prisoners to and from various facilities within the United States. Oklahoma City Airport (OKC) even has a special terminal for prisoners.
Bottom line
The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to bring deportation flights in-house, by acquiring aircraft in order to ramp up deportation efforts. Currently, the government charters planes from airlines, but with increased funding for ICE, the plan is for the government to also fly its own planes. Specifically, the plan is for this “airline” to operate a fleet of Boeing 737-700s and Gulfstream G650ERs.
I’m not sure I really see huge efficiency gains here, since I question how much cheaper the government could run this operation, especially while still contracting out all the jobs to third parties. If this is really about not being able to get enough planes chartered from airlines, well, then I’d be a bit surprised. The claim is that this will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, though I’d love to see a breakdown of that math…
What do you make of the ICE Air concept?
