American CASA/National Air

American CASA/National Air 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.