George S. May Business Blog

For one airline, business is booming

 From msnbc.com

“Earlier this year, Delta sharply cut U.S. capacity and aimed to cut 2,000 jobs, although more than 4,000 workers took voluntary severance…American Airlines and its feeder carrier American Eagle plan to cut capacity 6 percent next year… Even Southwest, which saw the pullback of other airlines as an opportunity for growth, is cutting capacity… 4 to 5 percent, although that’s slightly less than the airline’s previous goal of a 5 to 6 percent reduction.”

As we see almost every airline take losses and make major employment cuts, there is one that remains steady. Actually, steady, is incorrect. This airline is growing at a rate of 10% per year over the last three. Michael Pitts Chief of Flight Operations admits “We’ve actually added aircrafts to our fleet”.

Can you guess which airline that is? I’ll give you a clue.

Tickets are only available one way.

Do’t have it yet, here are a few more clues:

It is one of the only flights where you still get a free meal. There is no first class. There is a standard rate of $680.00 to fly anywhere in the world, however, tickets are free for the passengers.

Confused yet?

The airline I am talking about is ICE Air. Never heard of it? Don’t feel bad, if you had heard of it, you might have very recently been in handcuffs. ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) Air is the airline that transports illegal immigrants back to their countries of citizenship and for them, right now, business is booming. In 2008 they will have an estimated 356,000 illegal immigrants flown out of the US. At $680 a pop they will be bringing in somewhere in the neighborhood of $242,080,000 revenue for 2008. Not too bad for a company that only flies six days a week and a couple flights a day. ICE has 22 holding facilities in the US. Once the illegal immigrants are captured, they are flown to one of three hubs in Texas, Arizona or Louisiana. From there, ICE Air has daily flights to Central American countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and also frequent flights to Nicaragua, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and the Caribbean. When it gets enough immigrants to fill a plane, it also flies to Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. ICE Air leases nine planes, and sometimes it also charters commercial jets. It flies six days a week.

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