Budget airline Ryanair has signed a €15m (£13.5m) IT and communications contract with Cable & Wireless (C&W) for the provision of services across Europe.

Under the five-year deal, the supplier is expected to manage the carrier’s entire telecommunications network including 180 airports, bases, datacentres and corporate offices in 26 countries.

Ryanair's self-service kiosks will also use C&W’s network, which is expected to speed up the check-in processes. The touch-screen kiosks offer the option to check-in bags and obtain boarding passes.

“This contract will enable us to gain better productivity and efficiency at lower costs from using a single large telecommunications network,” said Ryanair IT director Eric Neville. "Ryanair benefits from commercial flexibility across the entire solution, providing us the capacity to grow our passenger numbers to 67 million in 2010.

“As we develop our facilities, it is important that we have a communication network that delivers what we need in terms of reliability and operational effectiveness, but also has the capacity to grow,” added Neville.