The Steamship Authority will close its reservation counter at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport this fall and move the operation to its Vineyard Haven terminal.

Vineyard SSA governor Marc Hanover said this week that with increasing numbers of customers booking online, it is no longer cost effective to rent airport counter space.

“We voted to close the airport office,” Mr. Hanover told the Dukes County commission Wednesday, one day after the SSA monthly meeting was held on Nantucket. “In its heyday, it was handling 32,000 walkups,” he said of the reservation office. “Last year, it was 12,000. Over 50 per cent of all reservations are now made online.”

The two reservation clerks currently working at the airport will use upstairs space in Vineyard Haven terminal, which is no longer being used as crew quarters. A clerk will also be stationed in Oak Bluffs when that terminal is open.

“No jobs are going to be lost,” Mr. Hanover said. “They will be doing the same jobs out of the Vineyard Haven office. It makes no sense to continue [at the airport].”

The change is scheduled to take effect Dec. 1, when the SSA’s lease at the airport expires.

Mr. Hanover also told county commissioners the boat line no longer wants to lease a five-acre parcel at the airport business park. The SSA had been renting the parcel for $35,000 per year. Expanding the Island reservation facility or staging standby vehicles were both under consideration at one point as possible uses for the property.

“The authority has no interest in it any longer,” Mr. Hanover said.

He also said the boat line had received a substantial grant to enhance security at terminals and aboard the vessels.

“Some of it you will see, some of it you will not,” he said.

He said the authority is assessing whether to train and equip its personnel with nalaxone, often known by its brand name Narcan, used to reverse the effect of an opioid overdose. He said there has already been one overdose aboard a Steamship Authority shuttle bus this year. The driver, who was not equipped with nalaxone, drove directly to the Falmouth Hospital where the victim was treated.