A commercial airline that has come under scrutiny for working with immigration officials has stopped its seasonal route between Connecticut and Portland for the year, but a spokesperson for the company said the move is unrelated to public criticism.

Avelo Airlines, a Houston-based company, started flights between the Portland International Jetport and Tweed-New Haven Airport in southern Connecticut on May 21 and the last scheduled flight departed on Aug. 31, said Zachary Sundquist, the jetport’s assistant director.

It’s unclear whether the route will resume next year. Courtney Goff, a spokesperson for Avelo, said the airline is weighing whether to return to the jetport because the summer flights saw inconsistent passenger numbers.

The airline has been criticized by community members in Portland for carrying out deportation flights for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona, starting in May. Some protestors at a demonstration in July urged flyers to boycott the airline.

The protestors say they plan to celebrate the end of the route as a win for their group. But jetport and airline officials say they had already planned to end the seasonal route at the end of August.

Goff said the protests had no effect on the airline’s decision, instead citing low demand for the route between Portland and New Haven.

“We are a for-profit airline, so we’ve decided to utilize the airplane for routes with better demand and consistency,” Goff said in a written statement.

Goff said some Avelo customers have asked for more destinations from the Portland jetport.

“We will continue to work with the airport and City to determine if anything else is an option at PWM moving forward,” Goff wrote in the statement.

Debra Bellare, one of the protest organizers and a member of Indivisible Greater Portland, said in a phone call Tuesday that she thinks the airline’s load issues are the result of the boycott.

“I feel like all the hard work was worth it,” she said.

Some of the protestors, who organized under the name Maine Stop Avelo Coalition, said in a statement Tuesday that they will “continue to put pressure on those in power to end all deportation flights in Maine.”

Sundquist, the assistant director of the jetport, said in a statement Tuesday that officials are unsure if the airline will return next year, but they expect to hear from the company in December.

Avelo was removed from the list of airlines on the jetport’s website.

“We do pull airlines off our website when there are no seats available to book in the future,” Sundquist said in the statement.

“This avoids frustrating passengers when it says we have an airline but when they go to their website there is no availability.”

Morgan Womack — 207-791- 6216 mwomack@metln.org