RECORD-breaking Southampton International Airport is the toast of the airline industry for what it has been achieving.

Month by month, the airport says it has outperformed other airports in the BAA group.

A lot of that success is down to the increasing number of destinations offered by its largest operator, low-cost carrier Flybe, which has made the airport a regional hub, and other airlines.

There have also been recent increases in frequencies on services to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle and the Isles of Scilly. Last month the airport welcomed its second low-cost operator and Germany's second largest carrier Air Berlin, with its addition of three weekly flights to Paderborn and its modern Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

Flybe announced last week it was adding more French destinations next spring and summer with new services to Limoges, Rennes and Bordeaux, joining Brest, Cherbourg, Perpignan and Toulouse. Flybe boss Ian Taylor, who believes the services will boost inward investment and jobs, said: "These five new routes will take our growth to 1.4 million passengers by summer 2005."

Flybe will also co-operate with the airport's newest operator, EuroManx, which will start flights to the Isle of Man from next March, initially using an AvCraft Dornier 328 Jet with 32-seats, offering connections to Jersey and Europe via Southampton.

Not only are airport passengers benefiting from a range of new leisure and business destinations, time-pressed business travellers are enjoying new initiatives to smooth their journeys through the airport.

Eastern Airways launched its Business Express "fast track" facility through security in the spring in support of its domestic flights to Aberdeen, Leeds and Newcastle, and British Airways now has a similar arrangement for its gold and silver cardholders.

British Airways is also introducing on-line printed boarding cards, enabling executive club members to check-in online from 24 hours before a flight and all other BA customers, from 12 hours before.

They can then print their boarding passes with a unique barcode as they check-in and at the airport can then proceed directly to security where the barcode is checked with a scanner.

David Neill, head of network development at British Airways CitiExpress, said:

"This is all part of the airline's drive to simplify the travel experience as we work towards a target of 50 per cent self-service check in."

In January, Scot Airways will implement a new reservations and departure control system, which will enable electronic ticketing by mid-2005.

"This will be especially welcomed by business passengers using the Amsterdam route," said managing director Merlyn Suckling.

Scot Airways was recently declared to be the most on-time airline between London and Edinburgh during the January to June 2004 period and its Dornier 328 turbo props continue to achieve high reliability. In the summer Air France introduced e-tickets on all its direct flights from Southampton.

In terms of traffic, from April to October 2004, the airline saw an eight per cent increase in passenger numbers between Southampton and Paris CDG.

Staff toast airport's tenth anniversary - See Business South inside today's Daily Echo.