Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/840553
The plan to purchase new aircraft and restore the government VIPs trans- port capabilities was approved on 30 June 2016 through a resolution on a long-term program of "Purchasing new aircraft for VIP transport", said to amount of approx. 431 million USD. The goal was to purchase two business jet type aircraft and two medium passenger aircraft – all brand new. In sum- mer 2016, minister Bartosz Kownacki announced that there was also a plan to acquire one more medium aircraft from secondary market. Such quick delivery, scheduled by the end of 2017, was to finish government coopera- tion with PLL LOT, who inherited an agreement for charter of two Embraer ERJ-170-200 after EuroLOT (this agreement will expiry in the end of 2017) . The decisions made in June bore led to the announcement of two tenders for purchase aircraft on 2 September 2016. PROCUREMENT The IU/149/IX-34/ZO/PN/DOS/Z/2016 tender for delivery two business jet aircraft was finalized at the speed of light, but the another one, the IU/151/ IX-34/ZO/NZOOiB/DOS/Z/2016, followed a slower pace. Four companies were interested in deliveries of the requested three medium passenger aircraft, with two of them being eventually invited to submit their offers: Boeing and a consortium of German Lufthansa Technik AG and Czech Glomex MS s.r.o. Interestingly enough, both parties decided to offer the Boeing 737-800, one of the most popular narrow-body airliners available on the market. The offers were officialy opened on 9 March 2017. It turned out that the German-Czech consortium virtually ceased to exist because the offer was submitted solely by Glomex s.r.o. who was not invited to sub- mit it on its own, and did not deposit the required bond. This was against the rules and despite the lower price of approx. 533 million USD, the offer was rejected for formal reasons. Meanwhile, Boeing's offer was approx. 710 million USD, which was much above the budget assumed for the project. As a result, the whole procedure was canceled, but the next day, MOD announced of initiation of negotiations with Boeing on the matter of an attempt to purchase the said aircraft directly from the manufacturer, with- out any tender. The explanation provided to the public was based on a claim that Boeing was the sole manufacturer with the IP rights to the 737-800, and with free manufacturing slots. Another interesting thing is that my question to MOD about the decision to select Boeing as the sole manufacturer of air- craft of this class and negotiations without a tendering procedure (passing Airbus and its A320 family over) has still remained unanswered. Boeing was chosen most likely because, as stated by MOD itself, the Boeing 737-800 aircraft will be soon used by LOT airlines, and so there will be maintenance facility at Warsaw Chopin Airport. An additional argument, was also proba- bly the fact that Airbus discontinued the marketing of the A320ceo series – in 2017, there were only 22 orders by handful airlines. On the other hand, the tender requirements set by MOD made it impossible for both industry leaders to offer their latest product such as Boeing 737 BBJ Max 8 and A320neo ACJ. The goal of rapid negotiations was to sign the contract by the end of March 2017. The reasons for that was very simple: the funding from the Fy2016 planned for the program were classified as "non-expiring expenses", which made it possible to spend them exactly by the end of March. It seems that three weeks would have been absolutely enough for negotiations, but it turned out impossible to award contract so quickly as planned because of a complaint filed to the National Appeals Chamber (Polish equivalent to US GAO) by three companies selling VIP aircraft. There was a hearing on 28 March, but the verdict was to be passed only on 3 April (because of the complexity of the matter). At the same time, NAC canceled the ban on con- cluding the agreement, which triggered the events of 31 March. The said verdict was passed on the announced date – it stated that the contracting authority infringed the principle of fair competition and the provisions of the Public Procurement Law act. This paved the way for further court cases, as illustrated by the events following in April. AVIATION