The favourite destinations from Exeter were Edinburgh and Alicante

More than 870,000 people used the airport between April 2005 and March 2006, the highest number of passengers in the airport's history.

The Newcastle route saw a 152% rise in travellers. The airport's most popular UK scheduled destination was Edinburgh which saw a 55% rise in numbers.

Alicante was the top scheduled service abroad, carrying 44% more passengers. The Faro service was up by 81%.

Milestone

Passenger numbers are up on the financial year 2004 to 2005, which rose from 618,201 to 842,461.

Councillor Richard Westlake, chairman of the airport's board of directors, said: "The significant increase in passenger numbers has continued the trend of the past few years.

"At this rate we can look forward to passing the one millionth passenger milestone during the next year."

The airport was recently put up for sale with Devon County Council hoping to complete the sale process by the summer.

The authority has signalled that it may retain a larger stake than the 10% originally planned.