Only 4 of the 17 new routes that airlines launched in 2017 and 2018 will still be running after this month.

Auf Wiedersehen, Frankfurt. Au revoir, Guadeloupe. Buh-bye, Block Island.

Many of the heralded new nonstop flights that landed at T.F. Green Airport over the last few years have quietly departed.

For a time last year, you could fly direct from Providence to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Miami and Pittsburgh, three of 23 T.F. Green routes that airlines added between 2014 and last year. After Norwegian makes its last scheduled flight to Dublin this month, just five of those non-stops will remain.

Whether those numbers represent progress is open to interpretation.

The churn of airlines adding and subtracting flights is constant at every commercial airport. And even with the loss of some of the newer destinations this year, the airport is still busier than it was in 2014, when the number of flights dipped to the lowest point since the terminal opened in 1996.

But a wave of airport hoopla that crested earlier this year, when Gov. Gina Raimondo touted it in a second consecutive State of the State speech — "T.F. Green is thriving" — has clashed with the recent news of airline pullouts and the abandonment of planned service to the Dominican Republic before it ever took off.

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In an effort to put the recent loss of flights in perspective, the Journal analyzed the last five years of T.F. Green flight numbers from the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, the state agency that runs Green and five smaller state-owned airports.

They show a spike in new routes starting in 2017 — the first year under new CEO Iftikhar Ahmad — coming mostly from ultra-low-cost airlines, such as Frontier and Allegiant, starting up Providence service. Green added 17 new non-stops in 2017 and 2018, compared with six between 2014 and 2016 (seven if you count two different airports on Cape Verde).

On the other hand, incumbent airlines, including long-time leading carrier Southwest, continued a long-term trend of cutting back seats out of Green over those same years.

As a result, while the number of T.F. Green destinations more than doubled, from 14 at the end of 2014 to 29 last year, the number of weekly departures has been flat. There were 441 weekly departures in July 2014 and 440 in July 2018, according to airport corporation figures.

Meanwhile, only four of the 17 new T.F. Green routes that airlines tested in 2017 and 2018 — Cincinnati; Denver; Punta Gorda, Florida; and Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina — will make it through this month.

What happened? The grounding of Boeing's 737-MAX planes after two fatal crashes has played a part in ending some flights — particularly with Norwegian and Southwest. And T.F. Green officials say fare wars at Boston's Logan International Airport haven't helped.

"On-going issues with 737 Max are affecting the availability of aircraft to support routes that are creating seasonal activity performance issues," airport corporation spokesman Bill Fischer wrote in an email Friday. "Competition between Jet Blue and Delta in Boston [is] leading to lower fare rates and extra capacity that is resulting in pressure on airlines operating at PVD," the three-letter code by which Green is known.

Airlines at Green added nine new destinations this year.

Nationally, average airfares have declined in recent years, and, with the arrival of no-frills airlines, Green's have fallen farther than most.

The average fare at Green dropped from around $370 at the start of 2016 to $332 in the first three months of this year, according to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics. Over the same period, the average national airfare fell from $380 to $352.

Fischer said the airport does not see any link between increased competition at Green and some carriers reducing flights there.

Over the longer term, passenger numbers at the airport began a steady decline from a record 5.7 million in 2005 to a low of 3.6 million in 2015. Last year, 4.3 million passengers flew to or from the airport, but traffic was down 9.6% in the first half of this year.

Part of the push to bring new flights to T.F. Green has involved the use of financial incentives, common in the airport industry, to get airlines to try out new routes. Rhode Island gave Norwegian $1.7 million and Frontier $300,000 to market their new routes.

And the airport typically waives landing fees on new routes for the first two years, the maximum allowed by the federal government.

When Norwegian announced it was ending the last of the eight routes it launched in 2017, at least one lawmaker called for an inquiry.

"It is evident that T.F. Green is experiencing several problems. I hope that a review of management performance will help lead to reforms and improved outcomes," Sen. Sam Bell, D-Providence, said in a news release.

Fischer responded with a quote from ratings agency Standard & Poor's, which said the airport corporation had "very strong management and governance, with a good track record of operating the major lines of business and managing risk," when the agency upgraded the airport corporation's bond rating at the end of last year.

Lawmakers did not provide any new funding to replenish the Air Service Development Fund in the annual budget they approved earlier this summer.

T.F. Green new destinations 2014-2018

Still flying

Cincinnati

Denver

Fort Myers, Fla.

Punta Gorda, Fla.

Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

Gone

Austin, Texas

Azores

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Bergen, Norway

Block Island

Cape Verde

Clearwater, Fla.

Cleveland

Cork, Ireland

Dublin

Edinburgh, Scotland

Frankfurt, Germany

Guadeloupe

Martinique

Miami

Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Pittsburgh

Shannon, Ireland

T.F. Green new destinations 2019

Las Vegas

Martha's Vineyard, Mass.

Minneapolis

Nantucket, Mass.

Nashville

New Orleans

Palm Beach, Fla.

Savannah, Ga.

Toronto