Airport operator BAA today has announce a landmark £100m outsourcing contract with Capgemini to run the company’s IT services - in addition to investing over £400m in IT to share real time information, better respond to crises and offer improved services to passengers and airlines.
This is an important element in a investment programme developed by the airports’s chief information officer Philip Langsdale that is delivering innovative airport IT systems that will support everything from the landing of planes through to security queues.
The IT investment programme for Heathrow led by Langsdale is aimed at improving passengers’ experiences in the airport by giving them the information they need when they want it; providing the airlines and other firms at the airports with the systems and IT services and infrastructure they need for quick and secure check-in; giving the airport and its airlines better systems to deal with events and incidents to minimise disruption; simplifying an unnecessarily complex set of systems at the airport so as to give Heathrow a better quality of service and reduce costs.
Outsourcing to Capgemini provides BAA with a stronger capability to deliver this programme. This is a five year deal that is expected to improve service quality, reduce costs, and accelerate the pace of investment.
Philip Langsdale, chief information officer at BAA, said, “We understand that passengers want short queues, quick information and a pleasant experience that gets them on their way without stress and with the confidence their bags will come back quickly. Our airlines need better more timely information and improved service quality .Our priority is improving our passengers' experiences and getting the best value we can on behalf of our airline customers. We will have spent over £400m on IT in the five year period ending in 2013 as part of a much wider capital spending programme designed to modernise every aspect of Heathrow. I recognise technology on its own cannot deliver these improvements ... but it is a crucial enabler”
On the deal with Capgemini he said, "Because our focus is on running airports, it makes sense for costly specialist IT functions to be outsourced and our buying power means that it's much more cost effective. We want to improve our resilience and ensure that we have the right systems in place to share the right information at the right time. Capgemini will have a key role in supporting this."
