WASHINGTON -- Six travel agencies jointly protested a move by
Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco to put its travel account
out for rebid under civilian procedures that will confine bidding
to seven large agencies.
In a protest filed with the General Accounting Office, the six
agencies said the industry had no idea Travis Air Force Base or any
other military unit was going to use the General Services
Administration's master contract program.
If they had known, the protesters said they would have bid for
GSA master contracts for California, enabling them to bid on Travis
Air Force Base along with the seven large agencies that already
hold master contracts for California.
The protesting agencies recommended that the GSA throw out the
current master contract awards and call for new bids or conduct a
separate procurement for master contracts for the military.
The protesters include N&N Travel of Las Vegas, the
incumbent at Travis whose contracts are expiring. N&N did not
bid for GSA master contracts because it specializes in the
military.
Other protesters that did not seek GSA master contracts are BCM
Travel, a small woman-owned firm in Virginia Beach, Va.; Ravenel
Bros., a small agency in Charleston, S.C., and Bay Area Travel of
Tampa, Fla.
Two other protesters did get several GSA master contracts, but
not for California. They are Manassas Travel, a small,
disadvantaged agency in Manassas, Va., and Alamo Travel in San
Antonio, a small, disadvantaged and woman-owned agency. The
agencies are represented by travel attorney Josephine Ursini of
Virginia Beach.
Earlier, Travis Air Force Base, reacting to legal objections by
Ursini, eliminated leisure travel from its request for proposals,
lowering the estimated volume to $4.5 million in official air
sales.
It was not known how Travis intends to handle its leisure travel
needs. The base also stated that the winner of its official account
will provide "interim" service until the Defense Department
implements its re-engineered travel system.
In the protest, Ursini argued that GSA and Defense Department
officials appeared side by side at industry conferences in recent
years to outline their separate approaches to travel contracting,
never once indicating that the military would use GSA master
contracts.
If the industry had known, "the competition would have been much
different," the protest said.
Even though Travis technically may be eligible to use the GSA
program, the GSA had an obligation to advise the industry of "the
real potential" and "cannot simply sit in silence," it said.
The protest also challenged Travis' failure to keep its account
reserved for a small business and claimed that the GSA -- not
Travis -- should have put out the request for bids.