Immigration

ICE deportation flights to end at Akron-Canton Airport on November 30

Akron-Canton, Ohio • October 31, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

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The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights that have operated almost daily at Akron-Canton Airport in recent months are coming to an end. The private contractor that handles the Homeland Security flights told the airport it will stop providing ground-handling services there effective November 30, 2026, airport officials said on October 28.

“Akron-Canton Airport (CAK) has been made aware that Avflight has notified the ICE flight operator, AEG Fuels, of its decision to discontinue providing ground-handling services at CAK effective November 30, 2026. ICE flights will cease from CAK beyond that date,” airport Vice President Lisa Dalpiaz said in an email.

For nearly six months, prison buses have arrived almost daily at the Avflight hangars on West Airport Drive in Green to transfer ICE detainees onto Eastern Air Express, Air Wisconsin and Global X jets, usually bound for Alexandria, Louisiana — the site of a major immigration detention facility and a primary hub for deportations out of the country. The flights have routinely drawn protesters carrying signs such as “Ice out,” “Immigrants are welcome here,” and “Stop ICE flights.”

The operation moved to Akron-Canton at the end of April, when Youngstown Warren Regional Airport closed part of its longest runway and tarmac for repairs. The flights were expected to return there when the work was finished in August, but that did not happen until a September 29 collision between two Eastern Air Express planes outside the Avflight facility. The tip of one wing scraped a stabilizer on the other, and both planes had to be sidelined for inspection and repairs.

For two weeks, the deportation flights were moved back to Youngstown Warren until both 737s were repaired and removed from Akron-Canton. On the day before President Donald Trump was to arrive at Youngstown Warren for a campaign rally on October 12, the planes — and the daily flights — were transferred back to Akron-Canton. Since then, at least 20 Eastern Air Express Boeing 737s and Air Wisconsin CRJ200s have landed at the airport in the city of Green, according to the flight-tracking application FlightAware.

The Western Reserve Port Authority, which manages the Youngstown Warren airport, said it was not aware of the Akron-Canton developments and referred questions to JetsFBO, the private operator that serviced ICE flights there in the past. JetsFBO did not respond immediately, and has not responded to previous requests over the last two months. Avflight, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and AEG Fuels, based in Miami, also did not respond immediately to questions.

Airport officials also learned that landing-fee bills sent to the three charter companies will not be paid. The airport had accumulated more than $46,000 in landing fees through September, but a Federal Aviation Administration memo released in early 2026 said private contractors working for the government would not be required to pay landing fees. Airport officials said the loss is insignificant.

The Akron-Canton airport authority has been the only organization forthcoming with information since news coverage began in July, though officials have kept their distance from the deportation activity. As a public agency partly funded by the federal government, they said, the airport cannot obstruct legal business activity that fits with its purposes — but they added that they had no intention of trying to convince the deportation contractors to stay, because the work did not fit the airport’s long-term business model.

Sources: Akron Beacon Journal (Oct 30, 2026); Signal Akron (Oct 31, 2026).