ROAD congestion around Heathrow Airport is proving to be Southampton Airport's gain.

Motorists heading to the international airport on the western outskirts of London are increasingly frustrated by the sheer scale of roadworks.

There are another two years to go before the ring road around Heathrow, the planned terminal five and improved links to the M3, M4 and M25 are completed.

Aviation experts who met up yesterday at Southampton Airport for a fact-finding briefing on a range of issues were told that Heathrow's loss was the local economy's gain.

Merlin Suckling, boss of Scot Airways, which operates services between Southampton and Amsterdam, described the scale of the problem.

She added: "It's getting people to think of Southampton more as a place to fly from."

Budget carrier Flybe, which has made the city airport its regional hub in the south, is stepping up a marketing campaign in London to entice business and leisure travellers here.

Flybe marketing director Mike Rutter said a quarter of passengers using Southampton came from inside the M25 - the motorway that rings London - even though Heathrow was nearer.

He told the Daily Echo: "With the traffic snarl- ups at Heathrow, what we have been seeing is that people find Southampton is faster, easier and less stressful to get to."

It is understood that Flybe expects to see the number of its passengers coming here from within the M25 rise to 40 per cent from 25 per cent over the next 18 months.

Meanwhile, the fast-track airport in Southampton continues to celebrate record passenger growth - it handled 1.2m passengers last year, with Flybe set to top the 1m passenger mark in late spring.

Airport managing director David Cumming said: "We have seen our catchment area widen significantly, with regular users travelling from Guildford, Basingstoke, Oxford and south-west London."

They are attracted by low fares, ease of rail and road access and high-frequency business routes, he added.

In a separate development, Hampshire-based group Watermark, which provides support services to the international travel industry, plans to buy airline catering provider Air Fayre for £17.3m. It hopes to finance the takeover through a rights issue.