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BRISTOL, ENGLAND -- Bristol International is a small airport just outside this English city, but its facilities -- and others like it throughout the United Kingdom and Europe -- have provided an opportunity for Continental Airlines' recent growth.

Instead of concentrating solely on huge tourist draws like London, Paris and Rome, the Houston-based carrier has moved into midsize cities, establishing nonstop links between its Newark Liberty International Airport hub and places like Bristol, a growing business center with a population of about 400,000.

In the last three years, Continental has also added nonstop flights to Belfast in Northern Ireland and Edinburgh in Scotland as well as to new locations in Europe, including Barcelona, Spain; Stockholm, Sweden; and Cologne, Germany.

The strategy has given some European cities a first-ever nonstop link to the United States and has allowed Continental to expand its European presence greatly, despite its inability to get coveted landing rights at London's Heathrow Airport.

"These routes are very strong," said James Summerford, Continental's vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Asia. "We really are turning into an international carrier. We're getting near the point where 50 percent of our revenues are international. The expansion is going fabulously well."

Continental's international performance helped lift last year's third-quarter revenue and income and will contribute to what's expected to be a profitable year when the carrier reports fourth quarter and full year 2006 earnings today.

Summerford said the international expansion plan, hatched 10 years ago, depended on a $1.4 billion renovation of the airline's facilities at Newark airport, the gateway for most of the new routes. Executives believed then that the revamped terminal would give Continental a formidable launching pad for going global, he said.

"We have a structural advantage over other airlines that allows us to hit a lot of these secondary markets," he said. "First, we have the only hub in the New York City area, with Newark Liberty. Second, we have the right kind of aircraft for these small markets, the Boeing 757-200, with 172 seats. It's great for the thin market, and it's very economical to fly. That makes routes work for us that don't work for other airlines."

The airline's European network has grown from five cities 10 years ago to 26 cities today.

Howard Wheeldon, an airline specialist at BTC Partners brokerage in London, said Continental's strategy of moving into places like Bristol may pay off and offset the company's absence from London Heathrow.

"These places might not seem very big to most of us, but they are very important places for Continental," he said. "They're growing at an equally fast pace as larger airports like Heathrow. If they play their cards right and choose places wisely, I don't think it matters if they're not in the center of London."

The process for Bristol was started by Tony Hallwood, the aviation development director of Bristol International Airport. He convinced Continental executives that the pool of travelers who would use the airline for U.S. trips extended far beyond Bristol.

Hallwood, who was also courting American Airlines, argued that leisure travelers and business people from a large, affluent swath of southwest England would fly to Newark with Continental if they could leave from Bristol's airport and skip the tedious drive to Heathrow.

"When we met with people in Houston, we knew were on solid ground," Hallwood said. "We knew there were over 300,000 trips taken to the States each year by people flying out of London Heathrow who originate in the southwest here. We knew we could pull a lot of those customers back with direct service to the States."

Hallwood's argument was buttressed by the long list of international companies in the Bristol area, including those with trading ties to Houston, which would provide a large number of travelers willing to pay premium fares for Continental's BusinessFirst service.

Airport authorities also offered Continental incentives to begin service, including an agreement to suspend landing fees for the first three years.

The addition of Bristol-Newark service also allows travelers to avoid the hassle of dealing with Heathrow, an aging, overcrowded facility where travel is frequently slowed by long security lines and by foul weather.

James Cowling, business editor at the Bristol Evening Post, said the addition of the Newark nonstop provided a major shot in the arm for the Bristol business community and brought some U.S. tourists into the region.

"There is so much potential for growth on the back of the Continental flight," he said. "The business community was delighted because it cuts time at both ends; they don't have to drive to and from Heathrow, that saves 2 1/2 hours each way."

Similar logic applies to decisions to expand to other smaller U.K. cities, including Belfast, where the economy has been growing steadily since the sectarian violence subsided.

In the past, travelers from Belfast and from Scottish cities like Edinburgh had to take connecting flights to Heathrow or to other European airports before tansferring to U.S.-bound flights. Continental's nonstop service has made that unnecessary.