United Airlines has made a series of cuts to its Newark-Bermuda service that will start to bite at the beginning of September.

The airline currently operates a daily service, but that will be reduced to a three days a week service from September 8 until November 17.

From November 17 United’s connection between Newark and Bermuda will end for the winter, but the winter schedule is still subject to further talks with the airline.

The move is a blow to the Bermuda Tourism Authority and will have a detrimental effect on the airlift numbers for the end of the year.

“United, like many other carriers serving Bermuda, has adjusted its winter scheduling in order to meet softening demand during the November through March period when airlines historically fill only 50-60 per cent of their seats to and from Bermuda,” said Aaron Adderley, the airport’s general manager.

“That is not a sustainable level of performance when the industry average for load factors is in the 80 percentile range.

“While we can appreciate the need to reduce capacity during the winter, for United, we would have much preferred that rather than suspending service altogether for four consecutive months, perhaps a limited schedule of three to four flights per week would have been better served.

“Our other airline partners have adopted such an approach and this would have enabled us to at least partially meet the travelling needs of our leisure market, the business sector and residents alike.”

United Airlines will meet for talks with airport managers before the start of the summer to find ways of having a “more sustained presence in the market”.

The airline’s Newark service to the Island resumed yesterday with a daily service after the winter suspension that started early last December.

Mr Adderley added: “It’s a tricky challenge because airlines want to see proof of increased demand before allocating additional capacity. On the other hand, it’s hard to increase demand if there is no available capacity to begin with.

“This is proving to be a challenge for the Tourism Authority, especially as the seasonal loss of service out of Newark is thwarting efforts to secure group business, for example.

“However, when we look at our other air services, there are available seats during the winter especially and we need to prove that we can fill those before we can aggressively seek additional flights.

“We’ve been very successful in securing new flights in the past. And there’s no question that the airlines will continue to respond and consider Bermuda for new services moving forward, especially when they see evidence of growth potential.”

Glenn Jones, the Bermuda Tourism Authority’s director of public and stakeholder relations, said the BTA was still confident it could reduce seasonality and increase demand. But he acknowledged that was difficult to do when the number of airline seats available had been reduced. Mr Jones added: “Our CEO is looking to rally a coalition of private sector stakeholders to address the airlift issue and then partner with the government to make the strongest possible case to the airlines.

“This past winter on the Newark and Philadelphia routes alone we lost 18,000 seats between December 1 and March 31.

“The airlines made those reductions based on a history of declining demand and those absent flights dealt a heavy blow to our efforts to increase demand in the first quarter.

“So we’ve been working urgently with government and other partners to avoid a repeat of this next winter.

“Meantime as the Tourism Authority increases demand in other parts of the year, it will be more difficult for visitors and residents to find airline seats at reasonable prices, especially if there’s a further reduction in capacity.

“Supply and demand dictates that as planes fill, the scarce remaining seats become very expensive.

“So that alone makes the airlift issue a matter of importance for every single one of us, not just the Tourism Authority.”