OXFORD Airport is celebrating 10 years of growth by welcoming plans for a new Premier Inn at nearby Oxford Technology Park.

The privately-owned airport near Kidlington, also known as London Oxford Airport, is ranked the fifth busiest UK business airport and among the top 20 in Europe.

It is among a handful of UK business airports that have seen consistent growth after the financial crash of 2007 and a new hangar is about to be completed to cater for increasing demand.

Short-haul flights from Oxford to Edinburgh could be reintroduced if passenger facilities at Oxford are improved.

The Premier Inn chain's involvement at the technology park was confirmed earlier this year and it is expected that a 101-bedroom hotel will be built.

Hotel guests are expected to include catering for air crew, owners and pilots bringing aircraft in for maintenance, and friends and families visiting air cadets at resident pilot training schools CAE Oxford Aviation Academy and Airways Aviation.

The hotel is scheduled to open in summer next year.

James Dillon-Godfray, head of business development at Oxford Airport, said London Luton Airport has kept its crown as the number one airport for business aviation movements but has become 'increasingly squeezed for slots, to the benefit of airports like us'.

He added: "With night flights constrained at key peer airports we can still operate to midnight seven days a week."

The airport is responding to demand for more home-based and visiting business jets with the completion of a new 16,000 sq ft hangar. The hangar doors were fitted last week and space is already being allocated.

Mr Dillon-Godfray added: "With the continuing demand for space we are working on plans for the next major expansion to the north of the site, fulfilling the need for aircraft residency - there are about 25 business jets residing at the airport."

Oxford Airport is owned by the Reuben Brothers. Investment activities include private equity, real estate ownership and development.

In December it emerged that flights across Europe could soon be a reality from the airport but only if it is allowed to expand into the Green Belt.

Airport operators said short-haul flights to Edinburgh, Dublin, Belfast, Amsterdam and Glasgow, as well as weekend charters to skiing holiday destinations, were viable.

It comes as joint proposals from RAF Brize Norton and Oxford Airport are in motion to triple the 'controlled airspace' in the area.

The plan has proved controversial, with a petition launched against what many amateur pilots say is an 'enormous threat to free flying'.

Oxford Aviation Services, which runs Oxford Airport, conceded the Oxford-Edinburgh route was the only one likely to be reinstated unless passenger facilities were allowed to expand.

Oxfordshire Growth Board chairman Bob Price said it was time Oxford had an airport to match its ‘global significance’ and backed the expansion.

Commercial services to Jersey, Dublin and Edinburgh have flown from Oxford over the past decade but proved unsuccessful.

Oxford Airport is about the same size as London City Airport, which flies short-haul journeys to Amsterdam, Zurich, Geneva and Dublin and takes passengers as far as New York.