Quite a few travelers hated to see Independence Air make its last flights Thursday, but Karen Finley may have been chief among them.

Finley, who lives in Turner, stopped by the sparsely staffed check-in counter of Independence Air at Portland International Jetport wondering what’s to become of her $400 credit from a canceled flight with the low-cost carrier.

Finley didn’t get any answers, just a friendly suggestion that she continue to try to contact the bankruptcy court that’s handling the dissolution of the airline, which took flight 18 months ago only to run into a storm of skyrocketing fuel costs and intense competition.

The company came to the jetport in June 2004 as the airport’s first discount carrier and with the promise that its cheap prices would help drive down fares. On Thursday, passengers and transportation officials worried that the airline’s departure could cause fares to rise, make flight schedules less convenient and convince more passengers to desert the Portland airport for cheaper flights from Boston or Manchester, N.H.

“I’m sorry to see them go,” said Finley, who said she and her husband had flown a few leisure trips on the airline.

Independence Air was formed in 2004 from Atlantic Coast Airlines, which had provided feeder flights to Delta, and later, United Airlines. When United sought to cut the fees it paid Atlantic Coast, the company’s executives decided to try turning the operation into a discount carrier, operating from Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C.

The airline grew to serve 36 markets, but began cutting back and dropping some cities when financial losses mounted.

Independence Air succumbed to what its top executive recently called “a perfect storm” of troubles, but it had a definite and positive impact on air travel during its relatively brief run in Portland, travel industry and airport officials said.

It captured 10 percent of the total market and dominated air travel to Washington, the most popular destination from Portland, said Greg Hughes, a spokesman for the airport.

Hughes said the airline’s departure may allow the remaining carriers, which cut rates to match the competition’s prices, to increase fares. And that, in turn, may mean a increase in the flow of passengers to Boston or Manchester in search of discount carriers.

In other markets that have lost low-cost carriers, “air fares have dramatically risen,” Hughes said, and travel experts predicted the same will happen in Portland.

Hughes said even he would consider taking a flight out of Boston if the price is lower by $100 or more, taking into account additional driving time, parking and the aggravation factor.

Denise Meiler, manager of Hurley Travel Experts in Portland, said Hughes won’t be the only one trying to balance lower-cost flights from other airports with the ease of flying from Portland.

“There will be more space at the Portland jetport,” she said.

Meiler said it’s hard to predict with certainty the impact of Independence’s failure on southern Maine’s air travel market. In most cases, the elimination of a low-cost carrier means higher fares, but the industry’s chaotic nature, with large “legacy” carriers in bankruptcy court and discounters flourishing, could change the equation, she said.

“So many of the airlines are in financial trouble that they’re desperately trying to get business away from each other,” she said, which could slow or reduce the rise in fares.

But, Meiler said, if city transportation officials can’t lure another low-cost carrier here, “it will be back to what it used to be,” when Portland had a reputation as an airport that was easy to get to and navigate, but where the flights were expensive.

Hughes said the city is constantly trying to lure discounters to the market, but noted that the biggest of all - Southwest - doesn’t operate in markets with a metropolitan population of less than 1 million. Still, Independence’s history here - Portland was one of the airline’s top markets for a time - gives city officials hard figures to use in trying to attract another airline.

With the demise of Independence, 13 Portland employees - among 2,000 companywide - have lost their jobs.

One of them, Justin White, said he starts a new job at the airport next week with Northeast Air, which provides fuel and other services to airlines in Portland. Most of the other employees either have other jobs lined up or have pending applications at other employers, he said.

White said Independence workers will receive two weeks of severance pay plus any vacation time earned since November, when the airline filed for bankruptcy protection. However, some workers may lose vacation time they had earned but didn’t use before November, he said.

Scott Berry, Independence’s station manager, said he will be the one employee staying on beyond Thursday. Berry will spend another week on the job, shutting down operations, securing documents, compiling an inventory of equipment and arranging for items to be sent to Independence’s headquarters in Virginia.

Then Berry will go to Virginia, returning to Norfolk. He, his wife and young daughter moved from Norfolk to Portland in May, he said, but his wife - now pregnant with twins due in April - was homesick for Virginia.

Berry said he’s got a line on a job with Norfolk Southern Railroad.

Employees had been aware since November that one possible outcome of the bankruptcy proceedings was that Independence might shut down, Berry said, but they had hope that a buyer or investor could be found.

“We were all optimistic that something was going to come through, but it didn’t happen,” he said.