ROCHESTER (AP) _ The Rochester International Airport is seeing a spike in its number of passengers with the addition of more flights and an endorsement from Mayo Clinic.

The airport has already had more passengers so far in 2017 than in all of 2016. More than 230,000 passengers have used the airport through October this year, compared to about 229,000 passengers all of last year.

Mayo Clinic amended its travel policy to require employees traveling for work to use the Rochester airport instead of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Mayo Clinic says an estimated four out of five employees previously chose to fly from the Twin Cities airport over the Rochester facility.

United Airlines also began operating three flights from Rochester to Chicago's O'Hare Airport in June. Delta Air Lines also added flights.

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