DOUGLAS HAMILTON BAA, the owner of Scotland's major airports, announced yesterday that it has signed a five-year outsourcing contract with LogicaCMG and will transfer 50 of its employees to the information technology company.

Under terms of the agreement, LogicaCMG, one of Europe's leading IT and business services companies, will work with BAA and its partners to "transform and manage" most of the airport operator's computer software applications.

BAA said LogicaCMG will deliver the support services from a centre in Bangalore, India. It said the deal will give it efficiencies and "significant cost savings".

Richard Rundle, BAA's IT director, said: "LogicaCMG was clearly the right business partner to form part of our multi-vendor strategy."

The company would not say if any of the staff to be transferred to LogicaCMG are based in Scotland.

BAA owns airports in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen as well as Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Southampton.

Earlier this week, the Spanish business publication Expansion reported that BAA's parent company, Grupo Ferrovial, is seeking more than 1bn in additional revenues for BAA from the UK's Civil Aviation Authority between 2008-2013 to offset the impact of the global credit crisis. Expansion said it based its report on a document prepared by the Spanish builder.

According to Expansion, Ferrovial wrote to the CAA complaining of tighter credit conditions, and saying that BAA needs more money through a tariff increase at Heathrow and Gatwick.