TRAVELLERS could start avoiding Teesside Airport because of the unreliability of its KLM UK flights to and from Amsterdam.

The fear was expressed at Monday's Middleton St George Parish Council by Coun Mike McBride, a businessman who frequently uses the Dutch airline, which he accused of showing a complete disregard for Teesside passengers.

"It happens to me and a lot of other people. You are just left stranded in Amsterdam. You can get back into other airports, but not Teesside. You are often stuck on the tarmac because of technical problems.

"I use Amsterdam as a connection for Italy or Sweden or you can go across to America. But you can't rely on the service to get you there or conversely to get you back.

" My next door neighbour now gets a chauffeur to take him to Newcastle because there doesn't seem to be any difficulty in flying to there or to Leeds/Bradford."

Coun McBride said on one occasion he was stuck in Amsterdam and the plane was supposed to fly to Teesside - but it was transferred to a Newcastle flight instead.

A spokesman for the airport said the problem was not confined to Teesside. He knew for a fact that Humberside had a similar problem and it could be connected to the fact that they were served by planes half the size of the Fokker 100's supplied elsewhere.

Recently the Teesside Airport Consultative Committee was told that KLM had been due to upgrade its aircraft at Teessside, but this was now not going to take place.

Instead it was going to going to place a spare aircraft there permanently in case of technical difficulties.

But yesterday it was confirmed that the plane had spent only a few days there, before being recalled.

As we went to press, a spokesman for KLM UK apologised and admitted there had been 16 cancellations on the Teesside-Amsterdam route between October 28 last year and this week.

"Disruptions to service have been largely attributable to bad weather in Amsterdam and the introduction of the new UK air traffic control centre at Swanwick. These external factors have also affected other airlines.

"KLM UK remains committed to Teesside airport."