Low-cost airline Norwegian Air is doing away with flights to and from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Edinburgh, Scotland, now that it appears a long-anticipated reduction in air passenger taxes is not going to happen.

The changes, which include a complete shutdown of Norwegian's Edinburgh base, are going to affect service out of Orange County's Stewart International Airport.

The final flight to Edinburgh from Stewart is slated for October 26, and the final flight to Belfast is on March 29, a spokesperson said Monday. The 2017 agreement for Norwegian to run affordable flights out of Stewart showed opportunity to people who would not have considered a European trip otherwise.

Traveler Carly Phypers, who had just returned to Orange County from Ireland via Norwegian on Monday, said the reduction in service disappoints her because American tourists who take the daily Edinburgh flights and the twice-weekly Belfast flights might pass on the longer, more expensive options to get to those places. Those options would likely include flying out of a larger airport, paying for transportation to that airport, and paying considerably more for the airfare.

"It's kind of surprising, because I feel like it can cut a lot of tourism out, which brings in money," she said.

Norwegian's Director of Communications for its U.S. operations, Anders Lindstrom, told Spectrum News that Norwegian was expecting a one-third reduction in Scotland's air passenger duty, or "APD." The APD is a tax paid by passengers who fly out of airports and has become a point of contention among low-cost carriers like Norwegian.

The APD reduction would have made the price for return-flights comparable to the inbound flights from American airports such as Stewart, Lindstrom said. Flights to Edinburgh from Stewart start at $103.90.

That reduction Norwegian was expecting never happened, keeping the starting price (including taxes) for an Edinburgh-to-Stewart flight at $226, a price too high for Norwegian's low-cost model.

"It's not positive for customers and it's certainly not positive for the company," Lindstrom said when reached by telephone Monday morning. "It was common knowledge -- and a guarantee from the airport -- that they were looking into it, and they were going to reduce the air passenger taxes. Otherwise, we would have never gone forward and planned such an operation."

Lindstrom said service from Stewart to cities other than Edinburgh and Belfast is not changing, and that service to the Irish cities of Dublin and Shannon has been increased due to popularity of those flights.