FOLLOWING on from Chris Lloyd’s column about why Durham Tees Valley Airport’s International Air Transport Association’s code is MME (Echo, Dec 7), I spent 40 years at the airport’s cargo centre trying and successfully getting cargo shipments routed there instead of going to London Heathrow, Manchester on Newcastle.

As Chris says, when Teesside International Airport opened in 1964 all the obvious codes, like TEE or TIA, were already taken, but I also believe that originally it was suggested that the airport was going to be called Middlesbrough Municipal Airport.

However, MMA was already in use, by Malmo in Sweden, so it became MME as the next best option.

It will be interesting to see if I ever read of cargo arriving at MME again in the future.

There is no reason why it should not as all the cargo for this area still goes into LHR, MAN or NCL!

Mike Lee, Darlington