Ferrovial, the Spanish owner of Britain's busiest airports, wants profits from BAA to almost treble to $1.3 billion in the next four years, it emerged today.

The Spanish construction group revealed its internal estimates for BAA's performance as part of its quarterly results.

Heathrow, which has experienced a catalogue of problems since the airport owner was taken over in June 2006 including the disastrous opening of Terminal 5, is expected to return profits up from £172 million this year to £848 million by 2012.

Ferrovial's aggressive plans for its airport assets are based on average growth in passengers of 3 per cent a year at each of the airports. By 2012, BAA expects to be handling 143.2 million passengers, compared with 127.7 million now. At Heathrow, passenger numbers are expected to jump to 77.7 million from 69.9 million in 2008.

BAA's airports handled 11.8 million passengers in April, a drop of 3 per cent on the previous year, due to the Easter holiday falling in March.

When April and March's figures are combined, there was a 0.9 per cent fall on 2007 figures.

BAA was hit by the cancellation of nearly 500 flights in April, mostly at Heathrow, due to the problems with Terminal 5 and spring snow on 6 April.

The first month in which the Open Skies agreement came into being saw a 6 per cent increase in North Atlantic traffic at Heatrhow. Overall, transatlantic travel, was down 1 per cent.

On Friday, investors in BAA agreed to inject an emergency £400 million into BAA in a bid to prevent the airport group's credit rating falling to "junk" status.

Nicolas Villen, chief finance officer of Ferrovial, said yesterday that the company was confident that it would refinance the BAA debt by the end of the third quarter. He said that the bond markets were beginning to open and that the company had made good progress on negotiations with banks, rating agencies and documentation.

Last Friday, BAA said credit markets were difficult and this could affect its plans to refinance. “BAA may not ultimately be in such a position [to begin negotiations] owing to continuing challenging market conditions,” the company said.

Operating costs at BAA rose 33 per cent in the quarter as it paid more for security and maintenance and the opening of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 - an effect compounded by a 14 per cent appreciation in the euro versus the pound.

BAA is expected to recoup the extra costs after regulators approved higher tariffs.

Separately, it has emerged that one of the original investors in the £10 billion takeover of BAA has already cashed in some of its stake, making a 15 per cent capital gain.

According to reports in Spain, Caisse De Depot et Placement du Quebec, the pension fund manager, has reduced its stake in BAA by 5.5 per cent to 23.15 per cent. The buyer is understood to be an infrastructure fund.

The Canadian investor has realised its profit despite Ferrovial's problems refinancing its original purchase.

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