Rights groups urge airlines to halt ‘one in, one out’ deportation flights

People being processed by Border Force officers last year under the ‘one in, one out’ scheme. Photograph: Home Office/PA

Campaigners have urged airlines deporting asylum seekers to France as part of the UK’s controversial “one in, one out” scheme to stop facilitating the “cruel and forced deportations”.

Letters have been sent by 28 refugee and human rights NGOs on both sides of the Channel to four airlines believed to be involved with deportation flights – Air France, Titan airways, AlbaStar airlines and Corendon airlines – urging them to halt what signatories call “shameful involvement” with the flights.