Allegiant Air will no longer offer service out of Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport as of Aug. 11.
Allegiant currently offers service to Orlando Sanford International Airport on a revolving schedule, with some parts of the year featuring twice-weekly flights while other parts of the year were on seasonal hiatus, said Allegiant Air spokesperson Jessica Wheeler.
“Unfortunately we weren’t seeing the demand on the route we had hoped to,” Wheeler said. “We were also informed that beginning next year, the airport costs were going to go up. The combination of seeing decreased demand and incurring increased cost, we simply couldn’t justify the service anymore.”
Allegiant started offering service from the airport in November 2011, with four flights a week to the Florida airport. That schedule was reduced to the current schedule due to how the service was utilized, Wheeler said.
A spokesperson for Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport did not return a call requesting comment.
The news from Allegiant comes less than week after upstart airline PEOPLExpress announced it would begin operations from Newport News by the end of June. Among the destinations offered by PEOPLExpress are St. Petersburg and West Palm Beach, both in Florida.
The closest airports offering Allegiant service to Orlando Sanford International Airport are in Roanoke and Greensboro, N.C., as of the suspension of service from Newport News.
Along with PEOPLExpress, Delta, Frontier and U.S. Airways remain in place at the airport.