Charlottetown Airport to see fewer summer passengers

The Charlottetown Airport says fewer passengers will be flying in and out of P.E.I. this summer.

The airport says Air Canada has returned to using many smaller jets compared to bigger planes it put on routes last summer.

Delta has also cancelled adirect flight to New York.

CEO Doug Newson says losing those seats is disappointing but he's still optimistic 2015 will be a good year.

"That's our goal, is to convince the carriers that there is a big market here, and I think if we had more capacity and more options, then you might see Tourism PEI expand their marketing efforts to longer-haul markets as long as there was seat capacity there," said Newson.

"It's a bit of a chicken-and-an-egg thing type of thing but it is our goal in the long term to convince the carriers that there is demand for more service and I'm quite confident that we will see that over the coming months."

On a positive note, WestJet added more seats to its flights.

The airport says it will soon begin negotiations with airlines to convince them to increase their capacity for next year.