Airline in fresh talks to fly migrants to Rwanda as Sunak "looking forward to planes leaving in Spring"

10 April 2024, 12:01

By Charlotte Lynch

@charlotterlynch

An airline which previously refused to fly migrants to Rwanda is in fresh talks with the Home Office, LBC understands.

AirTanker responded to pressure from campaign groups in 2022, with its CEO confirming it had "no plans" to operate deportation flights.

But LBC understands the carrier is now in discussions with the Home Office, and has not responded to several queries from charities and journalists.

It follows a meeting between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the Rwandan president Paul Kagame with both leaders looking "forward to flights departing to Rwanda in the spring".

The pair spoke for around 25 minutes in Number 10 and discussed "the pioneering UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership", as the Prime Minister updated President Kagame on the next stages of the legislation in Parliament.

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"Both leaders looked forward to flights departing to Rwanda in the spring", a Downing Street spokesperson said.

AirTanker has removed the contact page from its website following "thousands" of messages from campaigners, according to charity Freedom from Torture.

Campaigns manager Agustina Oliveri told LBC they'd received "intelligence" the airline was back in talks with the Home Office about operating new deportation flights and began trying to contact them more than two weeks ago.

"We started privately to give them the chance to tell us what is right and what is wrong, it's been two and a half weeks now, so we've started publicly campaigning", she said.

AirTanker's Chief Operations Officer Paul Kimberley previously confirmed in an email in June 2022 "we have no plans to operate flights to Rwanda", following pressure from the charity.

In 2022 carrier Privilege Style also pulled out of the scheme, after it operated a plane that was unable to leave the tarmac in June 2021 following an 11th hour ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.

Privilege Style said it “hereby wishes to communicate the following: that it will not operate flights to Rwanda in the future. That it has never flown to Rwanda since the one flight scheduled for June 2022 (which is the reason for this controversy) was suspended.”

But the government has since been back in discussions with AirTanker, with the former Home Secretary Suella Braverman confirming to LBC they were in talks with airlines willing to operate the flights at her time of leaving office.

Freedom from Torture has now restarted it’s campaign in a bid to get the carrier to pull out again.

Ms Oliveri told LBC: "We've been monitoring their website closely, and we've realised they've taken down their contact page on their website - it now gives you an error.

"Different emails you could reach and different numbers you could call... that's now completely gone."

When asked what Freedom From Torture's message to the airline is, Ms Oliveri said: "We know there's lots of money in these contracts, but we'd urge them to think about the greater good.

"They've done some really good things in the past - they've delivered aid to Ukraine, they helped to evacuate people from Kabul in 2021. Let's stay on that side of things."

The bill to give the Prime Minister’s plan the green light is in the middle of parliamentary ping-pong, and is back in the House of Commons next week, after being rejected by the Lords.

A Home Office source would not confirm or deny whether it's in discussions with the airline, but said it would not comment on operational matters.

LBC has contacted AirTanker for comment.