Air North is cancelling its Fairbanks flight for the winter, as part of a new northern schedule coming on line Oct. 1, company president Joe Sparling said Wednesday.

Sparling said the passenger numbers don't justify the twice-weekly scheduled flights into Alaska.

During January, October, November and December of last year, for instance, there were 300 Fairbanks passengers spread over 50 flights through the four months.

That amounted to an average of only three going into Fairbanks and three coming out for each flight, Sparling pointed out.

In the same four-month period, he added, there were 950 passengers to Inuvik, 1,250 to Old Crow and 700 to Dawson City.

'I guess, in simple numbers, you are flying an extra 300 miles (500 kilometres) for six people,' he said.

Sparling doesn't believe this winter's cancellation of the Fairbanks connection will have any noticeable economic impact because the passenger numbers are so low to begin with.

On the current schedule for the northern routes, the company flys everyday but Saturday.

Three times a week, it uses its 40-seat Hawker Siddeley to fly the Whitehorse-Dawson-Old Crow-Inuvik-Dawson-Whitehorse route.

Three times a week, Air North used the 12-seat Beech Craft to service the Whitehorse-Dawson-Old Crow-Fairbanks-Dawson-Whitehorse route.

Under a new operational plan, Sparling explained, the company is reducing its northern schedule to five days a week Monday to Friday. While eliminating the Fairbanks route, it has added the Inuvik connection to the daily schedule, up from the three days a week.

Sparling said by reducing the northern schedule to five days a week, the company is hoping to increase the average daily load.

He said with so little use for the smaller Beech Craft, it didn't make sense to keep the $500,000-aircraft sitting idle, and it was sold in July.

Now, with only the Hawker in the hangar for the northern schedule, Fairbanks becomes that much less feasible, Sparling explained.

He said the airline will put Fairbanks flights on in February to coincide with the Yukon Quest sled dog race and Whitehorse's Sourdough Rendezvous festival.

'And we will start up again in May, probably around May 15,' he said of the plan to restart scheduled flights to Fairbanks next spring.

In general, said Sparling, the Fairbanks route has become a seasonal summer service, though things could certainly change if something like the proposed Alaska Highway gas pipeline comes on stream.

The company president said Air North did have regular Fairbanks customers and acknowledges they'll have to find alternate transportation.

'It's not like Fairbanks is an isolated community,' he said. 'I think that is one of the things we watched over the years, when there was a special event in Fairbanks, curling or hockey, people would wind up driving anyway because they wanted to have a car there.'