EDINBURGH Airport has become the first Scottish terminal in history to exceed more than 10 million passengers in a single year.

A total of 10,032,288 ­travellers passed through the doors since last year with 993,758 people using the airport in June alone. This includes 561,718 ­international passengers visiting the airport in the same month.

The news comes after a lucrative deal was announced with Etihad, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, which will launch a new year-round daily link to Abu Dhabi from Edinburgh - its first Scottish connection.

Gordon Dewar, chief executive of Edinburgh Airport, said new routes in the Middle East and North America were in its sights to further strengthen the terminal's international reach.

He said: "Middle East operators are the crossroads of our aviations between Europe and Asia.

"With Qatar, Etihad and Turkish airlines, we are giving people more choice and making it easy to get to Australia, Philippines, Thailand, India, with 'one hop' via the Middle East.

"They are big markets. We have got a long to-do list that we are working on, making sure every year we are getting a good mix of new destinations and operators."

Mr Dewar said he was keen to see more connections to an array of destinations, not only to offer choice to Scottish travellers but also to draw more tourists to the capital and beyond. He revealed the airport was trying to secure ten to 12 new connections at any time.

A new extension to improve access to the terminal will open in October.