Troubled economic times can bring all kinds of new projects. British Airways, bellweather of UK economy to a good extent, wants to outsource the operations for its flagship ba.com website as part of a major cost-cutting exercise.

It is estimated that ba.com takes about £30 million per year to run, and that BA is looking to save a big chunk here. BA Travel Booking and Servicing functions of ba.com – a major part of the ecommerce programme for BA’s online platform – will be outsourced to a third party under proposals being evaluated currently.

BA already uses third party vendors to for online FAQ service and payment system. Now even more will be outsourced, or maybe even sold, depending on how the proposals come. This blog post has more info.