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A British charter airline has announced that for ethical reasons it will no longer carry deported asylum-seekers who have failed to win the right to remain in the UK.
XL Airways, which is owned by XL Leisure, Britain’s third largest tour operating group, had been targeted by the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCAC) after one of its aircraft returned 40 failed asylum-seekers to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in February. There have been allegations that many deportees are being sent back to certain danger, and that on flights they are sometimes mistreated by private security guards.
XL, which has 24 aircraft mostly used to service XL Leisure holidays, said it had signed a contract with the government ‘without full understanding of the political dimensions involved’ and would not do so again. It said: ‘We are not neutral on the issue and have sympathy for all dispossessed persons in the world.’ The NCAC is now pressing other airlines, including British Airways and Virgin, to follow XL’s lead.
The UK government says airlines are at liberty to refuse to co-operate, but British Airways, which allows its aircraft to be used for escorted deportations, said it was unlikely to end the practice. ‘It is UK law and we comply with it – it’s like asking whether we are happy paying income tax,’ it said.
The government does not reveal how many companies have contracted to carry failed asylum-seekers out of the UK, on the grounds that this would ‘prejudice the number of airlines willing to contract ... and could drive up the cost of such operations’.
XL Airways, which is owned by XL Leisure, Britain’s third largest tour operating group, had been targeted by the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCAC) after one of its aircraft returned 40 failed asylum-seekers to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in February. There have been allegations that many deportees are being sent back to certain danger, and that on flights they are sometimes mistreated by private security guards.
XL, which has 24 aircraft mostly used to service XL Leisure holidays, said it had signed a contract with the government ‘without full understanding of the political dimensions involved’ and would not do so again. It said: ‘We are not neutral on the issue and have sympathy for all dispossessed persons in the world.’ The NCAC is now pressing other airlines, including British Airways and Virgin, to follow XL’s lead.
The UK government says airlines are at liberty to refuse to co-operate, but British Airways, which allows its aircraft to be used for escorted deportations, said it was unlikely to end the practice. ‘It is UK law and we comply with it – it’s like asking whether we are happy paying income tax,’ it said.
The government does not reveal how many companies have contracted to carry failed asylum-seekers out of the UK, on the grounds that this would ‘prejudice the number of airlines willing to contract ... and could drive up the cost of such operations’.
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