BAA cites outsourcing in plans to reduce losses

BAA has reporteda large loss as the airport operator is forced to sell its Gatwick airport in Sussex, but has stated it will continue to focus on using IT to reduce costs across the company. BAA has also been hit by falling passenger numbers as the credit crunch has reduced the amount of flying, especially amongst customers using the low cost airlines like Ryanair, which flies from Stansted, a BAA airport in Essex. BAA reported that passenger numbers at its flagship airport Heathrow were down 2.3 per cent, whilst up for sale Gatwick has seen passenger numbers deplete by 7.2 per cent and Stansted is most heavily hit with a drop of 12 per cent. BAA announced today a pre-tax loss of £784.7 million for the first nine months of 2009. For the same period in 2008 it had losses of £519m. BAA says the increase in losses is due to £225m it has lost in the sale of Gatwick. Last December the Competition Commission told BAA, which is Spanish owned, to sell three airports, in particular Gatwick, Stansted and Edinburgh. CIO at BAA Philip Langsdale has been an early adopter of Windows 7. BAA said today in its results that it will “continue to identify opportunities to reduce costs” and listed IT outsourcing as a prime target for this strategy.