AN airline has no regrets over a soon-to-be grounded New York adventure and will not rule out reviving Transatlantic services in the North-East, a senior boss has revealed.

United Airlines’ non-stop flights between the Big Apple and Newcastle Airport will end next month after weaker-than-anticipated demand and Brexit uncertainty hit its bottom line.

However, Bob Schumacher exclusively told The Northern Echo the company has refused to dismiss the possibility of returning long-haul flights to the region.

United’s New York services have run throughout this and last summer, but will end in early September after failing to be profitable enough.

Mr Schumacher, United’s UK and Ireland managing director for sales, said the decision was disappointing, saying the company had genuine hopes of extending its relationship with Newcastle.

However, he said the flights’ popularity, which yielded about 33,000 passengers in two years, was not enough.

He said: “We are very grateful to the region for supporting it and we have no regrets.

“(But it got to the point where we thought) do we go somewhere else?

“However, it’s far from damning in any way, it’s just something we tried and unfortunately it did not turn out the way we expected.

“We have learned from it and I think the airport has learned from it too.

“We will keep an eye on the markets because we are there for our customers.”

Speaking as services restarted in May, Mr Schumacher said it was a case of the business “tickling, nurturing and growing what we have” at Newcastle in response to questions over potential all-year round flights.

However, he said the intervening Brexit vote and anticipated impact of the weaker pound on UK outbound travel had scuppered any such ambitions.

He added: “We expected it to be a little stronger in May, but the UK has been through a lot since then.”

Newcastle’s American dream was spearheaded by former chief executive, David Laws, who revived plans that had stalled amid the economic downturn in 2007.

After convincing United to start five-day-a-week operations last summer, he then thrashed out negotiations to increase the frequency to six days this year.

Nick Jones, interim chief executive, said United’s withdrawal was not reflective of the airport’s wider progress, revealing annual passenger numbers are moving ever closer to a five million target.

Saying it also hasn’t ruled out future Transatlantic flights, he added Ryanair’s new services to Portugal and Spain next summer, and a similar move by rival EasyJet to start Berlin and Gran Canaria flights, were proof of the site’s continued growth.