MASCOUTAH - MidAmerica St. Louis Airport will again be without passenger service soon.

Allegiant Air says it will cancel its twice-weekly service to Las Vegas from the airport in Mascoutah on Jan. 3.

Since beginning service in April 2005, the Las Vegas-based carrier has been unable to overcome stiff competition from other low-cost carriers at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, said Tyri Squyres, a spokeswoman for Allegiant. For the same reason, Allegiant in September ended its other route from MidAmerica to Sanford, Fla.

"Competitively, there's some good low-cost service out of Lambert," Squyres said. "We have been considering this for a long time and it was a difficult decision. ... It's just the geography of that situation can't be helped."

Squyres said customers who hold tickets for after Jan. 3 will have the option to either receive a full refund, reschedule their trips on a sooner flight or travel from any of the 70 other cities it serves.

The empty passenger terminal won't be new territory for MidAmerica, which opened in 1998 at a cost of $213 million.