Unpaid landing fees are mounting for the three air charter companies providing deportation flights out of the Akron-Canton Regional Airport for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Invoices released this week show that Eastern Airlines (which operates Eastern Air Express), Global X and Air Wisconsin owe a combined $46,513 for 148 landings since the end of April, $33,927 of which is past due for landings in May, June and July. Airport vice president Lisa Dalpiaz said the charter companies have not communicated with the airport about the late fees.
Not included in the billing is the long week from Friday of Labor Day weekend to the following Friday, which may have been the busiest period so far. Through Sept. 17, the total landings had risen to167 since ICE moved deportation flights to Akron-Canton from Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, which partially closed its longest runway for repairs.
Akron-Canton has become a Great Lakes hub, with planes landing here in the evening, often from a major ICE prison and deportation center in Alexandria, Louisiana, and on occasion directly from Tapachula, Mexico, the end point for many of the deportees. The flights can be tracked on the website FlightAware.com which maintains a robust database of commercial and private plane fights.
On the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 9 alone, three prison buses, transport vans from the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio west of Toledo and Butler County Jail near Dayton, federally licensed vehicles and privately licensed black SUVs arrived to load an Eastern Air Express Boeing 737.
The plane rested on the tarmac of a private contractor, Avflight, at the northwest corner of the airport on West Airport Drive. Avflight is a Michigan-based company that provides flight services to aircraft owners – a service known as a fixed base operator.
The jet would make a short stop in Indianapolis before heading to Alexandria, Louisiana, according to FlightAware.com.
Three hours earlier, a Global X jet departed for Alexandria from the same Avflight facility.
The Boeing 737s operated by Eastern Air Express and the Airbus A320 and A319 operated by Global X range in capacity from 125 to about 180 passengers.
Sept. 9 was one of the most active days in at least the last six weeks and was watched by a small group of protesters near the site. Erin Bracken-Sanchez of Canton said that as one of the buses turned onto West Airport Drive, she could see the silhouettes of the prisoners looking through the smoked glass.
“It was ominous. We may be the last people they see on this side who support them,” she said. Bracken-Sanchez said she is a member of the Buckeye Veterans Coalition and former member of the Army and Ohio Air National Guard. She said she’s in disbelief as she watches deportation activities across the street from the Air National Guard station where she previously was assigned.
The Labor Day week’s heavy activity began with a Global X Airbus A320 arriving early Sept. 5 from Alexandria. Within two hours of landing, the plane was back in the air to Alexandria. This was unusual because to date almost every flight by Global X, Eastern Air Express and Air Wisconsin arrived in the evening, sat on the tarmac overnight and then left the next morning.
Since Labor Day week, traffic has lightened. A Global X Airbus that arrived Sept. 13 directly from Tapachula, Mexico, remained idle on the tarmac through Wednesday.
Records requests largely go unanswered
Most of the information for this story was obtained through firsthand observations as part of reporting for this story, sometimes several times a day at the airport, and the use of FlightAware. Only the Akron-Canton Regional Airport Authority has been forthcoming with prompt answers to questions and records requests. The airport says it has no direct involvement in the deportation operations.
Observations suggest a routine for departures, which most frequently occur between 8 and 11 a.m. A flight plan is filed several hours before planned takeoff, workers arrive at Avflight and begin preparations, then prison vehicles, ICE cars and black SUVs with tinted glass arrive about 90 minutes before departure.
Vehicles line up outside the gate until all have arrived, then the gate is opened to move all vehicles onto the tarmac. Every detainee’s wrist and ankle binders are checked before boarding. Buses then move outside and stay until the plane rolls away – too late for a lawyer to extract a client from the plane.
A variety of vehicles have been observed, among them transport vehicles operated by the private prison company CoreCivic, a white unmarked turtle top bus from Butler County and black Ford transit vans from Mahoning County.
Though the turtle top and transit vans were unmarked, ownership of the county vehicles was confirmed by license plate checks through the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Ohio agency plates are public record.
U.S. government vehicles, including a transport van, also have been observed in the past two weeks.
Weeks of records requests and questions directed to government agencies and private
contractors have been largely unanswered except with a common refrain: Talk to ICE.
On Aug. 12, the Butler County sheriff acknowledged receiving the questions about the logistics of transporting ICE prisoners to Akron-Canton, a nearly four-hour trip. The Butler County Sheriff has been a major collaborator with ICE, and the county jail is used to temporarily house Haitian immigrants taken into custody in the Springfield, Ohio, area.
The sheriff was asked to explain how deputies on a Butler County prison bus received instructions for an Aug. 6 trip to the airport. The sheriff was asked where prisoners were picked up and how many were eventually delivered to the airport. There also was a request for financial information on payments from the federal government.
After no response for two weeks, the sheriff’s office was asked about the status of the records request.
Jonathan Davidson, a lawyer for the sheriff, responded: “The only information that I would be able to provide in response to your request is the financials that were submitted to ICE for transportation. All of your other requests would need to be directed to ICE.”
Emails to ICE media relations have been unanswered for more than two weeks. However, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin traveled to Ohio Labor Day weekend for a meeting with police, ICE and other federal authorities and announced the arrest of 50,925 people across the country in August.
The Springfield Sun-News reported that Mullin also disclosed that 380 were arrested in Springfield, but there was no timeframe for the arrests.
The Ohio Immigrant Alliance, a nonprofit whose mission is to protect the dignity and rights of all individuals who choose to make Ohio home, released a report Thursday showing that 448 people were booked into four publicly owned county jails on behalf of ICE between July 27 and Aug. 31. The numbers came from the jails and other federal booking data.
The jails are in Butler County, which the report shows accounts for more than two-thirds of all immigrant detentions: Mahoning County, the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio and the Seneca County Jail. The Geauga County jail doesn’t publish data online and a privately run prison in Youngstown, a major immigrant detention facility operated by CoreCivic, does not disclose numbers.
A growing tab for landing fees for ICE transports at Akron-Canton
The Akron-Canton Airport is still waiting to get paid its landing fees for the ICE transports in recent months.
Vice President James Krum provided copies of invoices showing that Eastern Airlines owed $41,900 for 136 landings of three versions of the Boeing 737 during the first four months of operations.
Global X owed $2,657 for 13 landings in July and August by two versions of an Airbus.
Air Wisconsin, which was added to the flights in July, owed $921 for 18 landings by a much smaller jet, a CRJ200.
The total for three months of landings is $46,513 – an amount that’s equal to roughly 4% of the airport’s total landing fee revenue of $1.1 million in 2025.
The airport is a public agency bound by public records laws. While ICE is obliged to disclose contracts and provide arrest and deportation data – and is dragging its feet at that – the federal agency has handed off the daily business of deportations to private contractors who are not required to discuss details of their work.
None of the airlines -- Eastern Airlines, Global X and Air Wisconsin -- responded to emails to their media portals submitted on Sept. 1.
Avflight, the private contractor that services the deportation planes and provides access to the West Airport Drive tarmac for ground transportation, was twice asked a series of questions, beginning in July, about how it coordinates with the charter companies and prison buses.
On Sept. 4 the company emailed a response from company senior vice president Joe Meszaros:
"Avflight does not publicly disclose non-public commercial, billing, contractual or operational information regarding the aircraft and operators it services. This includes information regarding invoices and payment arrangements, service coordination, passenger activity and specific flight-handling details.
"As a fixed-base operator at Akron-Canton Airport, Avflight provides aviation services on a non-discriminatory basis in accordance with applicable FAA and airport requirements. Questions regarding flight operations or government activities are best directed to the appropriate aircraft operator."
Will ICE flights move back to Youngstown-Warren?
When the deportation flights were relocated to Akron-Canton from Youngstown here was an understanding at the airport authorities that the traffic would return to Youngstown. The construction was completed in the last week of August. Neither airport has heard whether ICE will return to Youngstown-Warren, which is in a more remote location and only about 15 minutes from the CoreCivic private prison in Youngstown, which is a major ICE contractor. Youngtown-Warren also is in a far more remote location than Akron-Canton, which is on a major interstate between two large cities.
Youngstown-Warren airport director of engineering and construction Randy Partika said on Sept. 1, “The runway re-opened last week. Any Homeland security flights would be handled thru JETS FBO (a fixed base operator at the airport) and though we know their intent is to maybe return, you should reach out to them for any details.”
An email to JETS FBO has not yet been answered.
Doug Oplinger is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and former reporter and editor at the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be emailed at oplingerdoug@gmail.com