FAA DENIES WILCOX ELECTRIC INC’S WAAS CONTRACT PROTEST

Based on a recommendation from Judge Martha DeGraff of the General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week denied a protest by Kansas City, Mo.-based Wilcox Electric Inc. to continue the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) contract.

"We are very disappointed at the outcome because we believe we made a good case through our lawyers," said Wayne Dohlman, Wilcox director of advanced systems development. "We do have the right for an appeal. Right now, we don’t know what our next step will be. We were comfortable with the protest process, but not with the outcome."

Wilcox, which was dropped from the $475 million WAAS contract earlier this year (GPNN, May, 2, pp. 1-3), protested award of a single-source contract to Hughes Aircraft Co. [GMH] in an interim WAAS deal. Wilcox also said that the FAA gave Hughes more time to complete the WAAS project than it had while it was the prime contractor.

However, DeGraff, in her recommendation to FAA Administrator David Hinson, said that the FAA and Hughes did not fail to fulfill the conditions of the acquisition management system (AMS). Degraff also said, in her recommendation to Hinson, that the AMS does not contain a "hard and fast" requirement for a market analysis–a point that Wilcox said was required by the AMS.

"The FAA was aware of the technology available in the marketplace, and was not aware that any vendor had made significant advances toward improving its technical capability," the recommendation letter said.

DeGraff said that Wilcox "overstates" the AMS’ preference for competition in awarding the single-source to Hughes. "The AMS does not state that single-source procurements are disfavored or can be used only if there is no other choice. Instead, the AMS recognizes that single-source procurements are appropriate when they are in the best interest of the FAA and when they are necessary to fulfill the mission of the FAA," DeGraff’s letter said.

Hughes, Rockwell International [ROK] and Lockheed Martin Federal Systems [LMT] also participated in the protest as interested parties, the FAA said.