Photo: Staff File Photo

Air Canada and low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines together are pulling more than a dozen flights from San Antonio International Airport — two weeks after city officials announced the facility had reached a passenger record.

Air Canada will end its nonstop route from Toronto to San Antonio on April 28, nearly two years after first launching the flight, officials said Thursday.

Frontier — which has rapidly expanded its service at San Antonio International in the past three years — will eliminate 16 of its 25 nonstop routes it currently flies out of the city but will keep nine.

“We wish we still had them, but they just didn’t perform to the level the airlines needed them to continue,” Aviation Director Russ Handy said Thursday.

If a major carrier like American Airlines or Southwest Airlines “pulled three or four gates, that would be very, very bad,” said John Dickson, head of Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s 21-member Airport System Development Committee.

But he’s not worried about whether Air Canada and Frontier reducing their service to San Antonio International bodes ill for the airport.

“I’d be lying if I said it was good news, but I’m not jumping off a bridge because of this,” Dickson said. “I think we’re going to have others that take bets on us.”

San Antonio officials have aggressively sought more nonstop flights in recent years. The airport currently has nonstop routes to 54 destinations. When Air Canada and Frontier pull their routes later this year, that number will fall to 41.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio airport saw record passenger traffic in 2018 — more than 10 million

Officials lamented the route losses but said such losses are common in the competitive airline industry.

A representative for Frontier did not provide comment.

The Air Canada route began as a daily nonstop route, but the carrier later reduced its frequency to five times a week, Handy said. The route “performed well during the peak travel periods, but did not meet Air Canada’s expectations during the off-peak months,” he said.

The city’s air service division is working to obtain nonstop service to Canada through other carriers, Handy said.

Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the airline will continue to operate routes to Houston, Dallas and Austin.

“Unfortunately, despite the collaborative efforts of Air Canada and the (San Antonio) airport, the route did not meet our projections,” Fitzpatrick said.

Frontier will cut routes to 16 markets from the San Antonio airport by the end of the year, Handy said.

The low-cost carrier has ratcheted up its presence at San Antonio International within the past two years. In May, Frontier announced it was launching nine nonstop routes to the airport, all of which have now been canceled.

On ExpressNews.com: Frontier Airlines adds 9 nonstop flights to San Antonio airport

The move is part of a larger pullback by Frontier across the country following an “aggressive” increase in its offerings, Handy said.

Frontier also is decreasing its nonstop options out of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport, San Antonio airport officials said.

Of the 16 canceled routes, 12 were seasonal. Most of the routes were operated two to three days a week, Handy said. Travelers still can fly from San Antonio to Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Charlotte, N.C. — markets served by Frontier — on other airlines, Handy said.

The low-cost carrier still will fly out of San Antonio to Denver; Las Vegas; Orlando, Fla.; Atlanta; San Diego, Calif.; New Orleans; and Colorado Springs, Colo., as well as the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., areas, Handy said. Frontier has told airport officials they likely will increase flight capacity on those routes, he said.

Air Canada received more than $729,000 in incentives to operate the nonstop route through the city’s Air Service Incentive Program, which subsidizes routes through a mixture of marketing incentives, rebates and fee waivers. It’s not immediately clear how much incentives the city has given Frontier to operate its routes.

City officials won’t ask Air Canada to repay any portion of those incentives because the airline fulfilled the terms of the agreement, Handy said. But the city is negotiating with Frontier about repaying some of its incentives, he said.

The carriers’ decision to scale back or cancel service to San Antonio International comes weeks after the city declared record passenger traffic to the airfield in 2018.

More than 10 million travelers boarded flights or landed at the airport last year, up almost 11 percent from more than 9 million that did so in 2017.

Demand for travel in and out of San Antonio is “getting brighter and brighter” despite the Air Canada and Frontier news, Dickson said.

San Antonio International has seen 30 consecutive months of passenger growth. The number of travelers who will use the airport is expected to grow 2 percent annually in the next two decades, and 2.4 percent annually in the 30 years after that.

And, Handy said, the flights lost only represent 1.5 percent of airline seat capacity serving the airport. The airport’s overall seat capacity is expected to increase by 6.5 percent this year.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio airport gets new low-cost airline, 2 nonstop routes

Alaska Airlines announced in January it would launch a twice-daily nonstop flight to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in July. The next week, Minnesota low-cost carrier Sun Country Airlines entered the market with news that it would launch two nonstop routes to Portland, Ore., and the Minneapolis area.

“It hurts to lose these nonstop destinations for sure, but we’re encouraged by what we see in growth already and continue to be encouraged for the future,” Handy said.

Joshua Fechter is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering real estate, economic development and philanthropy. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports