THE North-East has two airports – Newcastle in the north and Durham Tees Valley airport just outside Darlington.

Yet, when locals wish to travel somewhere other than Spain, we have to fly from further afield.

That sometimes means long treks to East Midlands, Stansted or even Luton.

Budget airlines, like Easy Jet, Ryanair and Jet 2, all fly from Newcastle. All three of them have lots of flights, but guess where to?

Yep, Espana. Most of them to the same airports, as well.

Why don’t the owners of DTV airport ask Flybe to fly to different locations in Europe, instead of just Jersey, which in turn, could possibly boost passenger numbers at the airport, help to keep airport staff in work and offer a chance for North-East travellers to be able to fly to other locations than Spain.

It’s not exactly rocket science, but for the future of our local airport I hope that one day there will be new direct flights to other places in Europe from the Tees Valley, because last year the airport had its lowest number of passengers since 1975.

Christopher Wardell, Darlington.