A record number of passengers flew from Leeds-Bradford International Airport in December. A total of 75,799 people flew on scheduled flights during the month, a rise of more than 39 per cent - 4,430 - than the previous highest figure for the period.

The scheduled routes which had the biggest increases were: Ryanair's Dublin service, which had 177.39 per cent more passengers; and Edinburgh, which carried 56.7 per cent more passengers. Overall passengers numbers for the month were also up by 28 per cent - with a total of 100,944. Last year the airport saw 1, 528,676 passengers pass through its doors, an increase of 0.20 per cent on 2001.