BAA, the airports operator, has secured a £7.65 billion financing package from its banks in a move that will enable it to redevelop large parts of Heathrow and Stansted.

The banks' commitment comes after a year of delays to the refinancing, which has threatened the company's ability to pay for development work at Britain's largest airports. Ferrovial, the Spanish infrastructure group, bought BAA two years ago and the deal has saddled the airports operator with £10 billion in debt.

The credit crunch and increased expenditure on improving standards at BAA's often-maligned facilities made completion of the refinancing difficult.

Nine banks will provide BAA with a loan of £4.65 billion secured against income from Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, with a further £3 billion made available for future capital spending. This will be used to build Heathrow East, which will replace Terminals 1 and 2, and to expand Stansted.

BAA is also expected to announce within days that it has begun talks with bondholders that own a further £4.5 billion of debt to transfer them to new bonds backed by income from the London airports.

Talks with other banks to raise more funds from another loan backed by income from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton airports are said to be at an advanced stage.

However, BAA has yet to discuss terms with its junior debt-holders, which are owed about £2 billion. There are reports that some of these junior debt-holders are unhappy at being left out and may try to disrupt the refinancing process.

Analysts said that a commitment of £7.65 billion from banks such as Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Santander made it likely that the full refinancing deal would be completed successfully. BAA expects to do this in the third quarter of this year.

A banking source close to the refinancing said: “These are challenging conditions, so it is a major endorsement of the company and a very important milestone in bringing about the refinancing.”

Steven Fernandez, an Exane BNP Paribas analyst, said: “This deal eliminates the biggest risk within BAA, and that will allow the company to get its capital expenditure facility sorted out.”

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