Team Spartan protests Canadian FWSAR award

Team Spartan, which consists of Leonardo, General Dynamics, Rolls Royce, and others, have officially filed an application for judicial review over the award of the Canadian fixed wing search and rescue contract. The contract was awarded to Airbus, with the C295, after a 14 year process. Spartan asserts that the C295 is unfit to perform certain aspects of the mission, as required by the RFP, and should have been disqualified. They are requesting that the court cancel the existing contract and award it to them.

There were reports that the requirements were originally written to favor the C-27J, but after a 5 year pause, and an independent review, the requirements were rewritten in 2015 to show no bias to any bidder. The contract is initially worth $2.4B, but could go as high as $4.7B. Airbus will deliver 16 aircraft by 2022.

Just when the Royal Canadian Air Force thought it could put a 14-year acquisition process to bed, Team Spartan has challenged the fixed-wing search and rescue (FWSAR) award to Airbus Defence & Space.

Team Spartan filed a 6 January application for judicial review before the Federal Court challenging the Public Services and Procurement Canada’s award decision, according to a 23 February Team Spartan press release. During the protracted competition, Airbus had pitted their C295 turboprop against Leonardo’s C-27J Spartan. Brazilian-based Embraer also put forth its KC-390 twinjet and Lockheed Martin ultimately backed out of its HC-130J proposal.

www.flightglobal.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

What do you make of this development?
I'm interested in your opinion.

a reply to: D8Tee

It's not unexpected. There hasn't been a major program award lately that wasn't protested. I'd have to read the actual RFP to find out what their exact requirements were, but from what I've seen of the program, it was well handled. It's all going to depend on the RFP wording. If it really was written to be as neutral as possible, then they don't have a leg to stand on and it will be denied.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Almost like Standard Operating Procedure nowadays to protest most anything.

You are most knowledgable about aviation, can I ask where this knowledge comes from?

a reply to: D8Tee

With the amounts of money you're talking about, they almost have to protest. The KC-46, over the course of the purchase, is looking at somewhere around $48B, just for the aircraft. That doesn't include the construction of facilities for the aircraft, training, etc. That's a lot of money for a relatively small program, when you compare it to something like the F-35 that's going to buy 2,000+ aircraft.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The KC-46, over the course of the purchase, is looking at somewhere around $48B

Thats to be an American purchase?

a reply to: D8Tee

It's the replacement for some of our KC-135 tankers that are the current mainstay of the US tanker fleet. They're all over 60 years old. They're planning on buying 179 KC-46s as replacements.