BANGOR – Federal employees at Bangor International Airport no longer will have the option to belong to a union after a nationwide vote held Friday.

Flight service station employees at the Bangor airport and 57 other locations voted 598-431 against maintaining representation through the National Association of Air Traffic Specialists, according to the union’s Web site. An added 27 votes were challenged.

NAATS will downsize and focus on representing its remaining federal sector members, the Web site states.

Individual results for Bangor’s flight service station were not available. Employees there will continue to work on an at-will basis until July 30, 2007, when the station is scheduled to close.

About a dozen employees remain at the Bangor station, half the number that existed before the Federal Aviation Administration announced last year that it would outsource the operation of its flight service stations. Aerospace industry giant Lockheed Martin Corp., which assumed management in October through its $1.9 billion contract with the FAA, now employs the workers.

Lockheed plans to consolidate the stations, which provide support services such as weather updates, route planning and air space information, from the existing 58 down to 20. By installing new automated technology and upgrading facilities, Lockheed expects to increase the network’s efficiency.

Bangor, which serves primarily general aviation, military and corporate pilots, originally was slated to close in April as part of the consolidation.