GNER has said it hopes to resolve a ticketing quirk that means passengers cannot buy a return rail ticket to the North-East's biggest airport.

Train passengers can buy single through-tickets to Newcastle Airport by paying slightly extra to travel on the Tyne and Wear Metro, but no return fares are available by this method, baffling some passengers.

Nexus, which runs the Metro system, said its machines cannot handle such combined fares.

One passenger said: "It seems a bit daft that you can get a single through-ticket, say from Darlington, for this journey, which many thousands of people must make, but not a return."

John Gelson, a spokesman for GNER, which began a new ten-year East Coast Main Line franchise on Sunday, said: "This is an anomaly in the fares system and one we are looking at to try to resolve.

"In the meantime, people can travel to the airport by paying for a single through-fare on their outward journey or just pay separately to get on the Metro."

A Nexus spokesman said that while passengers could pay slightly more to travel on the Metro to get to the airport, they could only do this one way. He said: "Unfortunately, the machines we have on the Metro do not have the capacity to issue tickets like this going the other way."