The agreement will cover all airports in the UK that BAA controls: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. A combined total of 150 million passengers a year use BAA’s airports.

According to the company, the four year deal means that Carillion is the preferred provider of on-site services including cabling for voice, data and other airport specific network systems, cabling for new projects and ‘break fix’ maintenance for existing cabling infrastructures.

The Carillion IT services desk will now handle all calls regarding maintenance and will be available all the time. The service desk aims to resolve all problems at the first call.

Bob Gerrard, network projects implementation manager at BAA, said: “We selected Carillion IT Services as the preferred supplier of network installation and maintenance services for BAA’s network infrastructure due to their expertise, experience and reliability, combined with an ability to provide a quality of service that will benefit not only our business and staff but also the millions of passengers travelling thorough our airports.”

The two companies have worked together for over 10 years, with Carillion providing infrastructure and cabling services to BAA’s three Scottish airports.

Noel McNulty, managing director of Carillion IT Services, said: “Being selected as one of BAA’s preferred suppliers for all seven of their UK airports is testament to our strong existing partnership and confirms not only our extensive infrastructure and cabling expertise, but also our specific substantial experience of working within the airport environment. We look forward to continuing to work closely with BAA as they enhance and upgrade their airports across the UK.”

Spanish-owned BAA recently came in for severe criticism over the botched opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport in March 2008. A report by MPs cited the lack of preparation and inadequate training on the new IT system as central to the disastrous opening days, which saw flights cancelled, bags lost and long queues at check-in. The fiasco was branded “a national disgrace” by the report.

Operations at the £4.3bn terminal are now running much more smoothly, with more than nine out of 10 flights leaving on time.