A Frontier Airlines plane lands at Long Island MacArthur Airport...

A Frontier Airlines plane lands at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma on Aug. 16, 2017. Credit: Barry Sloan

Frontier Airlines officials said Monday that flights from Long Island MacArthur Airport to Miami and Fort Myers, Florida, will be discontinued effective April 8.

Officials said that they made the change because the routes were not popular enough to continue. A spokesman for Frontier did not know if or when the Florida flights would ever return.

“They just weren’t meeting our expectations,” airline spokesman Richard Oliver III said Monday.

The announcement comes less than a week after Frontier said it will end flights from MacArthur to New Orleans on March 5.

Islip Town officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment, other than to say they expected to announce later this week new routes that Frontier would be bringing to the Ronkonkoma airport.

Levittown resident Rosemary Costabile said she was disappointed that Frontier didn’t give the Florida routes more time to take off before canceling the flights.

“I’m frustrated,” she said. “I wish more people would get on the bandwagon and see how easy it is to fly out of there.”

She said the change throws a wrench in plans for her husband’s 60th birthday later this year — they had been checking regularly for Frontier flights they could purchase to Florida using the company’s air miles.

“We were really planning to buy property down there, so it would have been ideal [to use the Miami or Fort Myers route] to go back and forth,” Costabile said.

The regional airport has seen a significant financial turnaround in recent years, ending 2017 with a nearly $3 million surplus.

The improved financial standing helped attract Frontier Airlines to the Islip Town-owned airport last August, a move that had been projected to bring in $2.8 million in revenue in 2018, officials said. Officials did not immediately have new projections for how the suspended route would affect its bottom line.

Biden in NYC … More Starbucks unionize … Women's History Month: Woman winemaker Credit: Newsday

Gunman charged in killing of NYPD cop ... Biden in NYC ... LI losing beds for psychiatric patients ... Opening day

Biden in NYC … More Starbucks unionize … Women's History Month: Woman winemaker Credit: Newsday

Gunman charged in killing of NYPD cop ... Biden in NYC ... LI losing beds for psychiatric patients ... Opening day

Latest videos

Newsday LogoSUBSCRIBEUnlimited Digital AccessOnly 25¢for 5 months
ACT NOWSALE ENDS SOON | CANCEL ANYTIME