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