BNUMBER:  B-271274; B-271274.3
DATE:  May 23, 1996
TITLE:  American CASA/National Air

**********************************************************************

Matter of:American CASA/National Air

File:     B-271274; B-271274.3

Date:May 23, 1996

Gordon R. Long for the protester.
David E. Sandlin and Barry L. Barnes, for Flight International, Inc., 
the intervenor.
Col. Nicholas P. Retson and Lt. Col. David S. Franke, Department of 
the Army, for the agency.
Behn Miller, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

1.  Protest challenging technical evaluation on ground that agency 
confused different offerors' proposals during evaluation is denied 
where:  (1) contracting officer reasonably explained administrative 
error which caused erroneous references to be included in the 
protester's award notification/debriefing letter; and (2) record shows 
that agency reasonably downgraded protester's proposal under the past 
experience subfactor.

2.  Protest challenging agency's evaluation of awardee's proposal is 
dismissed where even if this protest ground were sustained, another 
offeror would be in line for award instead of the protester.

DECISION

American CASA/National Air protests the award of a contract to Flight 
International, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. 
DCSAC-5285-0002, issued by the Department of the Army for the leasing 
of two cargo aircraft and the provision of related flight support 
services at the Military Freefall School (MFFS) located at Yuma 
Proving Ground, Arizona.  American CASA contends that the agency 
improperly confused its technical proposal with another offeror's.  
American CASA also challenges several aspects of the agency's 
technical evaluation of the awardee's proposal.

We deny the protest in part and dismiss it in part.

The RFP was issued on November 28, 1995 and contemplated the award of 
a fixed- price requirements contract for a base year and 4 option 
years to the offeror whose proposal represented the best value to the 
government.  The RFP emphasized that technical merit was more 
important than price, and provided that proposals would be evaluated 
under the following three technical factors, which were listed in 
descending order of importance in the RFP:  aircraft (with three 
ranked subfactors); organization and experience (with three ranked 
subfactors); and safety (with two ranked subfactors).  The RFP 
incorporated Federal Acquisition Regulation  sec.  52.215-16, Alternate II, 
which placed offerors on notice that the government intended to 
evaluate the proposals and award the contract without discussions with 
offerors.

By the January 12, 1996 closing date, 12 proposals were received.  On 
January 18, the technical evaluation panel (TEP) completed its 
evaluation of the proposals.  After reviewing the TEP's ranking, the 
contracting officer established a competitive range of the three 
highest-ranked proposals as follows:

     Offeror        Technical ScoreEvaluated Price

     Flight International96        $11,307,258
     Proposal No. 1

     Flight International94          6,885,070
     Proposal No. 2

     Specialized Transport94         8,511,842
     International 

American CASA's proposal was ranked fourth, with a technical score of 
80 and an evaluated price of $8,327,200.  

On February 23, the contracting officer--who acted as the source 
selection authority for this procurement--selected Flight 
International's Proposal No. 2 for contract award, as offering the 
best value to the government.[1]  On February 28 and March 6, American 
CASA timely filed these protests.

Evaluation of Protester's Proposal

On February 23, the agency issued an award notification/debriefing 
letter to American CASA advising that "[y]our offers, alone and as a 
joint venture" had been excluded from the competitive range as a 
result of four technical deficiencies.  Of significance to this 
protest, the award/debriefing letter identified the fourth technical 
deficiency in American CASA's proposal as "[p]ast performance in 
similar projects was inadequate."

American CASA asserts that the Army evaluators must have confused 
American CASA's proposal with another offeror's proposal.  Otherwise, 
American CASA asserts, the Army's award notification/debriefing letter 
would not have contained references to "offers" and "joint venture" 
since the protester submitted only one proposal in the name of a 
single enterprise.  As additional evidence of this alleged confusion, 
American CASA maintains that the agency could not reasonably have 
determined its past performance to be deficient since it is "currently 
under contract with the United States Navy and ha[s] performed two (2) 
contracts for the United States Army to provide exactly the same type 
of work as requested under this solicitation."  In this regard, the 
RFP identified "past experience and similar projects" as the second 
ranked subfactor under the organization and experience factor.

The contracting officer reports that her use of the term "offers" and 
the award notification/debriefing letter's reference to "joint 
venture" was the result of an inadvertent administrative error.  The 
contracting officer states--and the record confirms--that several 
offerors submitted multiple proposals, and that several of the 
offerors were joint ventures.  To facilitate preparation of each 
unsuccessful offeror's award notification/debriefing letter, the 
contracting officer states, she developed a standard letter on her 
word processor, which she then tailored to indicate the specific 
deficiencies of each unsuccessful offeror.  The specific award 
notification/debriefing letter which was prepared prior to developing 
the American CASA letter was issued to an offeror that was a joint 
venture; then, when the American Casa letter was being prepared, the 
contracting officer inadvertently failed to delete the references to 
"offers" and "joint venture."  In fact, because of this clerical 
error, the contracting officer reports--and the record confirms--that 
the "rest of the letters" sent to the unsuccessful offerors which were 
subsequently prepared (including American CASA's) contained the same 
erroneous references to "offers" and "joint venture."  The contracting 
officer further states that after discovering the error, by facsimile 
dated February 26, she issued corrected award notification/debriefing 
letters to each of the offerors, including American CASA.
 
Notwithstanding the contracting officer's explanation--which we think 
is reasonable and is supported by the record--American CASA contends 
that the agency must have confused its proposal with another offeror's 
because, according to the protester, there is no way the agency 
reasonably could have found American CASA's proposal to be deficient 
in the past performance area.  In essence, American CASA challenges 
the agency's evaluation of its proposal under this subfactor.

In reviewing whether a proposal was properly evaluated, our Office 
will not reevaluate the proposal, as the determination of whether a 
proposal meets the contracting agency's needs is a matter within the 
agency's discretion.  We will examine the record to determine whether 
the evaluators' judgments were reasonable and consistent with the 
stated evaluation criteria.  Triton Marine Constr. Corp., B-250856, 
Feb. 23, 1993, 93-1 CPD  para.  171.  Here, the record supports the agency's 
evaluation of the protester's proposal under the past performance 
subfactor.

The record shows that the following deficiencies resulted in a 
downgrading of the protester's proposal under the past performance 
subfactor.  First, American CASA's prior experience consisted of only 
three contracts, all awarded fairly recently, including one that began 
in September 1995; in comparison, the other, higher-rated offerors had 
more extensive experience with similar contracts.  Next, the TEP found 
that it was not clear that the three contracts had the same technical 
requirements as those required here.  For example, the protester's 
proposal did not specify whether the referenced contracts involved 
static line parachute jumps or freefall jumps, the latter of which are 
used exclusively at MFFS.  Additionally, the protester did not 
indicate whether the previously performed contracts included High 
Altitude/Low Opening or High Altitude/High Opening parachute jumps, 
both of which are part of the MFFS curriculum.  Finally, for one of 
the prior referenced contracts, the protester had performed cargo 
drops as well as personnel drops, but in its proposal did not specify 
the percentage of each.

Although the agency's rationale for downgrading the protester's 
proposal under this subfactor was fully explained in the agency report 
on the protest, the protester did not rebut or otherwise respond to 
the agency's findings.  Since the record supports, and the protester 
does not rebut, the agency's conclusion that the protester's proposal 
did not adequately demonstrate how its limited experience pertained to 
the MFFS requirements, we conclude that the agency reasonably 
downgraded the protester's proposal under the past experience 
subfactor.[2]

Evaluation of Awardee's Proposal

The protester raises several other arguments which challenge the 
agency's evaluation of the awardee's proposal.  American CASA contends 
that the awardee's proposal should have been downgraded under several 
technical subfactors because of alleged noncompliance with various 
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) licensing and certification 
requirements.[3]  We will not consider these arguments.

In this case, as noted above, the agency properly downgraded the 
protester's proposal under the past experience subfactor; American 
CASA challenged no other aspects of the agency's technical evaluation 
of its proposal.  Accordingly, we have no basis to question its 
proposal's low technical score, or the agency's exclusion of its 
proposal from the competitive range.  Thus, even if we were to sustain 
American CASA's protest of the agency's technical evaluation of the 
awardee's proposal, American CASA would not be in line for award.  
Another offeror---Specialized Transport International--would receive 
contract award since it is the third ranked offeror with a 
significantly higher technical score than American CASA, and was the 
only other offeror whose proposal was included in the competitive 
range.  American CASA has not challenged the technical evaluation of 
Specialized Transport's proposal.  Under these circumstances, American 
CASA is not an interested party to maintain its challenge to the 
technical evaluation of the awardee's proposal since even if its 
protest were sustained on this ground, it would not be in line for 
award.  See 4 C.F.R.  sec.  21.0(a) (1996); American Overseas Book Co., 
Inc., B-266297, Feb. 9, 1996, 96-1 CPD  para.  60; Continental Tel. Co. of 
California, B-222458.2, Aug. 7, 1986, 86-2 CPD  para.  167.

 The protest is denied in part and dismissed in part.

Comptroller General
of the United States 

1. Although the Flight International Proposal No. 1 had a slightly 
higher technical score than Proposal No. 2, the contracting officer 
determined that the technical difference between the two proposals did 
not merit the price premium.

2. American CASA also contends that the TEP was not qualified to 
perform the technical evaluation.  The selection of individuals to 
serve as proposal evaluators is a matter within the discretion of the 
agency; accordingly, we will not review allegations concerning the 
qualifications of evaluators or composition of evaluation panels 
absent a showing of possible fraud, conflict of interest, or actual 
bias on the part of evaluation officials.  Solid Waste Integrated Sys. 
Corp., B-258544, Jan. 17, 1995, 95-1 CPD  para.  23.  No such showing has 
been made here.

3. Compliance with the FAA licensing and certification 
requirements--which is generally treated as a responsibility-type 
matter--was incorporated as a technical subfactor under the aircraft 
and safety factors of the RFP.