Airport operator BAA expects to save £1.6m per year by outsourcing its desktop infrastructure.

The company has awarded a five-year contract to IT services provider Computacenter.

The £45m deal will cut costs through consolidated procurement and a more efficient purchasing system.

Starting this week, Computacenter will take responsibility for support and provision of new hardware and software for 10,000 desktops - expected to expand to 15,000 over the next five years - and 3,000 information displays across BAA's seven airports.

The contract will replace deals with a range of separate suppliers, improving BAA's ability to negotiate better pricing and service.

Computacenter will be responsible for a range of PC services, including maintenance, asset disposal, installations and desk moves and changes, says BAA IT supply chain manager Jon Murray.

'By ordering all of our IT equipment and services through a single supplier, we're able to get substantial economies of scale, which is how we will get the bulk of the annual savings expected,' he said.

'We also get a better service. Previously, suppliers used to simply deliver various items to one of our airports and we would be responsible for putting it all together and setting it up. Now, the staff that used to be responsible for that have been reallocated to other projects, such as the additional work we've got with the development of Heathrow's Terminal 5,' said Murray.

Another part of the supplier's remit is to investigate ways of removing costs out of BAA's operations.

'We operate on a basis of shared risk and reward, which gives Computercenter an incentive to help us cut costs,' said Murray.

'One of the first things it has identified is extending our online ordering system to be able to receive invoices automatically, which takes costs out of both of our operations.'

BAA owns and operates seven airports across the UK, including London's Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, as well as Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports.

Last year, the airports handled a total of nearly 127 million passengers, up 3.9 per cent from 2001.