BAA to spend £137m on Heathrow IT overhaul

Heathrow is getting an IT overhaul

Airport operator BAA is to spend £137m over the next five years on overhauling the IT infrastructure at Heathrow.

As part of the firm’s Capital Investment Plan (CIP) published last month, BAA has highlighted four major IT projects that are required.

A £7.8m telecoms programme will replace Heathrow’s data network and switch all telephones to voice over IP. The objective of the project is to provide a “reliable, supportable” network to better support airlines and customers, according to the CIP report.

The airport operational systems project has a £57.1m budget, and aims to develop a simpler, cheaper IT architecture for Heathrow, covering areas such as airfield and terminal support, security, queue management, access control and asset management. The objectives of this project include reducing complexity and the number of systems, cutting costs, and improving the passenger experience.

A £30.3m IT infrastructure renewal will update systems supporting the airport, such as datacentres, servers and software infrastructure, IT security, wireless networking, network management and customer support.

And a £39.6m initiative will overhaul the systems used for business planning, to improve management information and simplify systems.

“This CIP presents the current snapshot view of how the premier status of the world’s busiest international airport could be maintained and enhanced through appropriate infrastructure and other capital investment,” said the report.

Separately, BAA owner Ferrovial has today published a notice inviting suppliers to bid for a contract for global telecommunications provision for the entire group.