Edinburgh Airport has had its busiest month ever, as passenger numbers topped 1.5 million in July.

The summer schedule saw tourists flocking to Scotland's capital and families flying off on holiday, making it the busiest month for any Scottish airport.

Passengers numbers are up 6.3% from the same month last year, with bosses at the airport saying its facilities need to grow in order to meet surging demand.

Managers have been consulting with nearby residents over proposed changes to aircraft flight paths.

Figures released on Wednesday showed an increase in both domestic and international flights.

Compared to 2017 the airport now serves 24 new international routes and one new domestic route.

This includes destinations such as Washington DC, Beijing, Budapest and Carcassonne.

Chief executive Gordon Dewar said: "These are fantastic figures for the airport, for Edinburgh and for Scotland, and they show an increase in passenger demand of 60% over the past 5 years - that is phenomenal growth and easily makes us one of Europe's fasting growing airports.

"That growth is something we should be proud of as it delivers wide-ranging benefits for the country through job creation, tourism spend and business growth, but it also means we need to keep growing our infrastructure and build that additional capacity to cater for those increased numbers.

"We have invested huge sums already to keep up with that demand and are now for the first time in a position where we're ahead of that curve thanks to a terminal expansion which will see us grow our passenger capacity to more than 17 million."

He added: "Part of that wider picture is the need for improvements to the external infrastructure as well and that is an ongoing discussion with various partners as we must change and grow to maximise the opportunities that the airport brings.

"This extension is the beginning of a longer period of investment in our airport.

"Growth is our main strategic challenge and we will develop in order to enable growth for Edinburgh and Scotland as a whole."