UK government in talks with charter airline over Rwanda deportation flights

AirTanker has previously been appointed by the government to supply tanker aircraft to the RAF. Photograph: Paul Crouch/PA

Rishi Sunak’s government has discussed the possibility of using a UK-based airline to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, industry sources have confirmed.

AirTanker, a charter airline with Ministry of Defence and RAF contracts, is understood to have been involved in talks about flying people 4,000 miles to Kigali.

The disclosure comes as No 10 prepares for the latest Rwanda bill to return to parliament on Monday in its attempt to deter asylum seekers from travelling across the Channel in small boats.

Government insiders remain confident that the bill will pass by the end of April after another round of parliamentary ping pong between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and that flights will take off in the spring.

Asylum seekers facing deportation, many of whom are from Iran, Iraq and Syria, are poised to launch legal action against the law.

On Sunday it will be exactly two years since Boris Johnson first announced that the government would send an “uncapped” number of asylum seekers to the east African country within a few weeks.

So far none have been sent, the policy has been estimated to cost more than £500m, and the supreme court ruled against the policy last year.

Ministers have remained tight-lipped over whether they have found an airline to transport asylum seekers on any one-way trips.

Sources said there were talks earlier this year involving AirTanker, which has a fleet available on a charter basis and in 2008 was appointed to deliver the RAF Voyager air-to-air refuelling plane. It is understood to be one of a number of airlines that have held talks with the UK government.

Thousands of people emailed AirTanker this week after the campaign group Freedom from Torture sought to persuade the company to rule itself out of the Rwanda scheme, as it did in 2022.

AirTanker has not responded to a request for a comment.

Rwanda’s state-owned airline has turned down a request to use its planes for UK deportations. Sources confirmed that RwandAir was approached last year by the UK government and declined the offer.

The safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill will be back in the Commons on Monday as the government seeks to overturn changes made in the Lords.

Some officials say the bill could become law next week, despite widespread anger over the proposal across the Lords. Labour has indicated that it will not block the bill, with local elections looming and the government hoping for a confrontation over the scheme.

Lawyers representing asylum seekers who have previously faced possible removal to Rwanda are considering legal action to be launched once the legislation is passed, the Guardian understands.

They are expected to mount a challenge on the grounds that the law is incompatible with the European convention on human rights, which protects the right not to be tortured or face inhuman or degrading treatment.

However, a challenge on “incompatibility” would not stop flights from taking off in the short and medium term.

If such a challenge is ultimately successful, asylum seekers might have to be brought back to the UK from Rwanda and paid damages, according to legal sources.

Asylum seekers are also expected to challenge their removal on a case-by-case basis, which could lead to their immediate removal from a flight.

The bill allows challenges if a detainee faces a “real, imminent and foreseeable risk of serious irreversible harm if removed to Rwanda”.

People suffering serious mental or physical conditions, victims of torture and anyone who is shown to be suicidal could launch a challenge on these grounds.

Lawyers may struggle to stop the flights using last-minute injunctions – known as interim measures under rule 39 – which were used to halt a plane in 2022. Sunak has said he plans to ignore such orders from a Strasbourg court.

Government insiders insist that deportations to Rwanda will have an immediate deterrent effect on people seeking to travel to the UK via small boats.

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the bill, if it became law, would do nothing for tens of thousands of asylum seekers whose lives were in limbo without their claims being considered.

“The cost and chaos will get worse and immense human misery will be caused to the lives of men women and children who’ve fled war in countries such as Sudan and torture in countries such as Afghanistan. It will not do anything to fix the government’s broken asylum system. The only way to do that is to process asylum applications in a fair and timely manner and to develop safe routes to refugee protection in the UK,” he said.

A government spokesperson said: “We make no apology for pursuing bold solutions to stop illegal migration, dismantle the people smuggling gangs and save lives. We have robust operational plans in place to get flights off the ground to Rwanda in spring.”