TEESSIDE International Airport has broken through another milestone in its development.

The latest passenger figures reveal the airport has smashed through the 750,000 mark for the first time, recording 752,901 passengers in the year to the end of September.

The monthly figures for September also underline the massive increase in holiday business, with charter passengers up by almost 14,000.

Councillor Ken Hall, chair of the airport board, said: "This is a remarkable achievement in what has been a challenging year for the airport.

"These figures show how much local people value this airport and want to see it succeed.

"Their enthusiasm is underlined by the fact that we had an increase of more than 11 per cent in total passenger numbers during September."

Marketing manager Pascal Fintoni said: "This has been a tremendous summer programme and the good news for customers is that we have our best ever choice of destinations through the winter, together with even more operators and more seats next summer."

Starting in November, the winter programme includes services by Airtours and JMC to Fuerteventura, and additional flights to Tenerife.

Other operators, including Thomson, Panorama and First Choice will be introducing new services. Destinations include the Costa Blanca, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Majorca.

l Passenger figures for September were 88,874. They included 13,461 (international scheduled), 17,580 (domestic scheduled), and 56,611 (charter).