THE head of easyJet's UK sales operations has underlined the airline's enthusiasm for Scotland where the company sees scope for future growth.

Sophie Dekkers said she saw potential for a range of new routes from Scotland including flights designed to win more business from affluent oil and gas workers.

Leisure flights to take golf lovers from Aberdeen to places like Portugal will also figure prominently in the wish list she submits for easyJet's annual route planning exercise next winter.

"I would love perhaps to be able to do some golf destinations in the summer from Aberdeen because I think there's quite a big population there that would be interested."

After announcing new routes from Glasgow and Edinburgh in recent months, easyJet has no plans for any more. However, Ms Dekkers said: "Hopefully from next winter we can look to grow and we can look to add more routes. One of the good things about Edinburgh and Glasgow is they've got quite strong inbound attractiveness."

Ms Dekkers also noted the appeal of the domestic routes easyJet operates from Scotland.

She said: "On a Scotland to London domestic flight around 40 per cent of our passengers will be business passengers, whereas on a typical city route you'd have around 20 per cent."

easyJet flew 5.4 million passengers between Scotland and the rest of Europe in the year to September, up around 5 per cent, from a total of 5.1m in the preceding year.

Total group passenger numbers rose by 6.6 per cent annually to 64.8m.

The company increased its pre-tax profit by 21.5 per cent to £581m, from £478m last time.

easyJet said almost half of its seats are forward-booked for winter, putting the company slightly ahead of last year.