Tanker 101, an MD-87 operated by Erickson Aero Tanker, during the grid retardant test, January 15, 2014. Photo by Jeff Zimmerman. (click to enlarge)
The U.S. Forest Service (FS) had hoped to have as many as seven additional “Next Generation” large air tankers working under contract on May 30, 2015, but protests filed by two companies could push that date back by several months.
The FS first awarded contracts for Next-Gen air tankers in 2013 at the end of a 555-day process that also included protests which delayed the awards. Next-Gen air tankers are required to have capabilities not present in the previous generation of Korean War vintage machines. They must fly faster, be powered by turbine or jet engines, and have a capacity of at least 3,000 gallons of fire retardant.
Two companies have filed protests about this latest round of potential contracts, Coulson Aviation and Erickson Aero Tanker. The protests were lodged with the U.S. Government Accountability Office which has the responsibility of deciding whether the protests have merit, which they are required to do by July 9 for Coulson’s protest and July 17 for Erickson’s. Both companies later amended their original complaints, which complicates the procedure for the GAO, so it is unlikely that anything will be decided much before those mid-July due dates.
No contracts have been awarded yet, nor has the FS announced what their intentions are about the contracts. The two companies are protesting the terms of the solicitation which was first posted on February 19, 2015, and then amended five times. Responses from bidders were due on April 9, 2015.
In researching this article we reached out to Erickson Aero Tanker and Coulson Aviation, but did not receive replies by our publication deadline.
When the awards were announced for the first round of Next-Gen contracts in May, 2013, Neptune Aviation did not receive one of the seven contracts and filed a protest. A few weeks later Neptune dropped their protest which allowed the FS to finalize the contracts form the other seven air tankers. It was disclosed later that the FS and Neptune had entered into a written agreement under which the agency agreed to award Neptune a sole-source contract for two Next-Gen large airtankers in exchange for Neptune withdrawing its protest.
In December, 2013 the FS awarded the promised sole source contract to Neptune for the two air tankers beginning in 2014. The estimated minimum value of the contract was $141,000,000 and had a base period of four years with the possibility of adding five more. If those five years were tacked on it would could have brought the value of the contract up to almost half a billion dollars.
The basis for awarding the non-competitive sole source contract to Neptune, according to the FS, was that the company was in danger of going out of business. The agency used the industrial “mobilization exception” to the requirement to conduct a competitive procurement. Their rationale was that without Neptune, the FS could not field an adequate number of air tankers. In March, 2014 we wrote a very detailed article about the sole source award and how it developed.
That sole source contract was protested by three companies, Coulson Aviation, 10 Tanker Air Carrier, and Minden Air Corp. The GAO upheld the protest, writing in their March 2014 decision that the sole-source award to Neptune in exchange for Neptune’s withdrawal of an earlier protest, was not a reasonable basis for the agency’s action. GAO also disputed the claim that Neptune was in danger of going under, and recommended that the FS reimburse Coulson, 10 Tanker, and Minden for their costs of filing and pursuing the protests, including reasonable attorneys’ fees.
