Transcript CPP FY27 Pre-Solicitation Conference 1.14.26.pdf

General Services Administration – City Pair Program (CPP)

FY27 PRE-SOLICITATION CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT

Wednesday, January 14th, 2026

Mary Gartland Director, City Pair & Lodging Programs

Office of Travel, Employee Relocation and Transportation

Speakers:

Mary Gartland, Program Director

Mike Connor, Program Manager

James Santini, Program Contracting Officer

Matthew Racchini, Program Contract Specialist

Mary Gartland:

We'll have the program office review, some improvements made, and then our contracting acquisition team will review the overhaul that has recently been done, and just any changes that might trickle down from that, and the changes that the PMOs have suggested. We'll review the markets, numbers, and then answer any questions as well.

I really want to thank everyone for being here today. The City Pair team is committed to the partnership with our stakeholders. We're striving to deliver the best GSA experience for our partners. As our new GSA Administrator, Ed Forst, stated, excellence, integrity, and collaboration are not slogans, they're expectations.

So, one of our pillars, or key things we're focusing on is relationship management. We prioritize mutual growth to sustain robust relationships. Our program is embedded with data-driven back decisions, and we analyze those key performance metrics to identify trends and provide strategic recommendations to our stakeholders regarding our program optimization. These ideas are shared with our suppliers and our customer agencies for feedback to ensure alignment before we implement into our new contract.

Our contract is a government-wide agency engagement. We touch over 250-plus federal agencies. So therefore, we're continually expanding our global market coverage and ensuring efficient and effective requirements based on customer and supplier collaboration and feedback, all the while adhering to government regulation

Value add. The CPP offers unique advantages compared to other air procurement programs, such as year-round flat fares and full refundability. These are essential for government agencies to meet their evolving mission requirements. This year, you will see a new identified need, and we are introducing a pilot in 30 markets for a non-refundable fare. We anticipate this to further drive savings to the government and the taxpayers.

Easy to use. The program allows participation from any U.S. airline that can meet the minimum requirements, and we follow the airline commercial business practices. Our contract fares are visible and readily accessible through the government's online booking tools or agency travel management companies to meet the demands. Fares remain constant throughout the year, which facilitate a simplified budget and planning cycle for our agencies.

Again, we thank you for being here today and participating in the City Pair Program. We look forward to the FY27 solicitation cycle. And I did fail to mention who I am and introduce myself. I'm Mary Gartland, I'm the director of the program. My team will introduce themselves as they walk through their slides today, but I will turn it over to Mike Connor, the program manager, to walk us through the improvements made this year.

Michael Connor:

Thanks, Mary. Nice to be here with you all. I'm going to run through some of these improvements for the FY27 solicitation. We’ll start out with increasing the maximum connection time. You can see in the red, we've increased the connection times for domestic non-extended connect, international non-extended connect, and international extended connect, which we moved from 150 minutes to 160 minutes [for domestic non-extended connect]. Then you can see where the other ones climbed up.

So, just an improvement to hopefully capture some more offers.

All right, so another area we've made changes is the maximum circuity for the international routes when the total mileage exceeds 4,001 miles. That's up to 150% now. We combined two different categories, now anything over 4,001 is 150%.

Next is the extended temporary give-back. We're increasing the give-back time from 120 days to 180 days.

Okay, the big one that's a lot of questions are coming in on is the non-refundable pilot that we're starting. We're piloting 30 markets for a non-refundable fare, and if the awarded carrier in those markets offers a non-refundable fare, and if it is deemed fair and reasonable, it will be accepted.

The _CN will not be included in the composite fare, much like when we piloted the premium economy fare. It won't be part of the evaluation.

Okay, so the non-refundable attributes, these are the minimum requirements that we're looking at. If you want to exceed ticketing time limits or any additional attributes, that's up to the airline themselves. We're following your airline's commercial practices when it comes to the re-booking, re-ticketing, and cancellations.

What we're really looking for is that the traveler be able to select a seat when seating selection is available, I realize sometimes it's done at the gate, and we want them to be allowed to have a carry-on.

This next slide shows the markets that we are going to pilot for those 30 markets we're piloting for the non-refundable fares.

So, we're decreasing the amount of days required for the price reduction from 30 to 7 days. Contract modification will still be required if we do this, and so if you do choose to reduce the price on a contract fare, you do not have to do it for as long as you did before.

So, we have increased the number of markets solicited this year by 461 city pairs, which was an increase of 2.6%. So you can see that we're up to soliciting 18,539 city pairs this year. That, I believe, will close out the improvements, and now I'm going to turn the next several slides over to James and Matt on the contracting side.

James Santini:

Okay. Thanks, Mike. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is James Santini. I'm the Contracting Officer for the City Pair Program, and I really appreciate everyone's attendance here and interest in the program and this, upcoming, solicitation. So, with that introduction, I'll go ahead and get started.

I wanted to start off with the revolutionary FAR overhaul, hereafter referred to as the RFO. At present time, the process is still ongoing, but the applicable FAR sections for this procurement have been reviewed by the FAR Council and are reflected in the draft RFP [Request for Proposal]. We'll go through a couple of those later on in regards to the reps and certs. But generally speaking, particularly given the FAR overhaul, please familiarize yourself with the contents in the RFP, as any offers will be held to the requirements, therein.

I'm going to just do a brief overview of the RFP and its contents. The RFP essentially is broken down into four parts. Everything in Parts 1 and 2 will be added to the contract if and when it is awarded. Essentially, these are post-award contents.

Here on this page are pre-award requirements that must be met by each offer in order to be awarded a contract.

Okay, so moving into the RFP itself, we start with Section A and the SF1449 form, which is prescribed by the FAR to use in solicitations for any commercial services or products. Couple of quick notes here on this form. Box 17A, is one of the sections that need to be filled in with the name and address of your company, and the only other box that needs to be filled in is Box 30 (A, B, and C), which requires the name of the person filling out the form, their title at the company, along with that person's signature.

Moving on to Section B, which covers the services and prices. This section will include the different passenger count levels, the types of fares being solicited, and an extensive list of definitions of words that will be seen throughout the RFP.

Section C delves into the specifications, which includes the scope of the requirements, a comprehensive list of the mandatory and non-mandatory city pair program users, and finally the technical requirements of the solicitation.

Please note Section D and E have been removed as they don’t pertain to the solicitation.

Section F covers the performance timeline, which, for this procurement, is anticipated to commence on October 1st, 2026, and it will go through September 30th, 2027. Also included are two option periods. The first one is 2 months, the second one is 1 month, which, if they're both exercised, would take the contract through the end of 2027. Section F also includes the confirmation of service requirement, which is within 10 business days after contract award. And lastly, this section details the temporary give-back process, as well as the information relating to the auto-cancellation process.

Section G is the contract administration data, which specifies how travelers will be booking flights, as well as the method of payment for those services.

Section H, are the special contract requirements, and this essentially details the regulations that need to be adhered to, which include the Federal Aviation Act, regulations prescribed by the Department of Transportation, the Department of Defense, and the required carrier participation in the Civil Reserve Air Fleet Program, otherwise known as the CRAF program.

Part 2 is just one section, Section I, and those are the contract clauses. There are frequent updates to these clauses, so please familiarize yourself with the requirements specified in these clauses.

Moving on to the final two parts, which detail the pre-award requirements.

These final two parts detail the pre-award requirements, in order to be considered for award. So, Section J contains a list of required documents and attachments. This is the proposal checklist, and it will need to be submitted with the proposal, but it's also handy because you can mark off items during the submission process to ensure you have all the required documents and that they're submitted before the proposal deadline.

The reps and certs are found in Section K. Section K is broken down into eleven sections. Sections K.1 through K.10 will be completed in CPSS. Section K.11 needs to be examined closely, because there are some clauses and provisions that the offeror will certify through submission of their offer. Just by submitting their offer, the offeror certifies that they are in compliance and agreement with what was stipulated in Section K.11. There are also other clauses in K.11 where a certification is required in either CPSS or SAM.gov. But when that occurs, it will be clearly highlighted in parentheses next to the title of the cited clause, with the words, “needs to be submitted in SAM.gov”, or “needs to be submitted in CPSS”.

http://sam.gov

Section L, provides the instructions to all offerors, which includes all of the deadlines for this procurement. So please make notes of those dates in your calendar, and plan accordingly. And ideally, the earlier the better to ensure all the deadlines are met.

Section M is the final section, and it provides the evaluation factors utilized for the award. Essentially, it's a roadmap aiming to take the offeror inside the evaluation meeting room, detailing the specific processes that will be used to determine an awardee for each line item.

Now we can move on to the next slide. I just have a couple other additional slides with some updates and reminders. As it pertains to the system for award management, commonly referred to as SAM, the two most important factors for SAM registration for this procurement are, 1) at the time proposals are submitted, an offeror has to have an active SAM account in order for their proposal to be evaluated, and 2) at the time of award, any potential awardee also has to have an active SAM account.

Of course, during the life of the contract, the contractor is also required to maintain an active SAM account. Big picture, please just ensure everyone knows when those accounts will be expiring, and plan ahead to keep those accounts active.

As I previously mentioned, please review sections J and K of the solicitation, to ensure you've submitted everything required for award. As a reminder the deadline for proposals will be March 4th. One additional note, after the RFP has been posted, often times there will be amendments posted to SAM.gov. These amendments need to be signed and then uploaded to CPSS in the designated folders. The only other section along with the signature that's required on this amendment is highlighted here in the screenshot. It is in box 8, which requires the name and address of the company.

And then the last thing on this slide, when submitting your firm's current subcontracting plan, if you have one, please ensure it's the one with the contracting officer's signature, that was already approved, and not the one that was submitted for approval/consideration without the signature.

Moving on to the final slide, here is a screenshot of the vendor's checklist in CPSS, with the folders that have already been created, and it's here that you will upload the required documents. Those that have participated in this program before should be familiar with the non-highlighted folders because those have been used in previous procurements. I've highlighted two new folders that require your attention for this year, and this actually corresponds with the RFO. These two FAR clauses are in Section K of the RFP, and are specifically labeled in the RFP, with the phrase in parentheses, “please upload in CPSS as a vendor checklist item”. What you'll need to do is just print that specific clause from the RFP in Section K.11, then you'll place the check mark in the applicable boxes, and then you'll upload that document shown here in the highlighted folder.

http://sam.gov

Again, please reach out to us if you encounter any issues accessing CPSS or uploading any documents. We really have a great CPSS team on hand, and they can usually resolve things fairly quickly. That being said, please don't wait until the last minute, right before the deadline to submit proposals, because you never know when extra assistance is going to be needed. I, again, thank you for your participation, look forward to this new procurement season and working with you, and I will pass the time over to Matthew.

Matthew Racchini:

Good afternoon, all. I hope you can all hear me okay. We've got a lot of devices that we're working with here. My name's Matt Racchini, I'm the Contract Specialist with the City Pair Program, and I'm going to go over the City Pair Source Selection tool, which is what will be used for carriers to upload proposals and their offers for Groups 1, 2, and 3. So the link here at the top of this slide goes to the landing page for CPSS.

It is calm.gsa.gov, very simple. And then CPSS can also be accessed by going to the draft RFP in section L.1. So carriers will need to provide us with their list of CPSS users prior to the system opening so that we can ensure that all users have accounts created, and that they can all receive access. So make sure to reach out to me if you need that done.

Also available on the landing page is the vendor user guide. So, we have an existing vendor user guide, we're going to have an updated version that will be provided by February 1st. We're still working on that. But any changes from the existing version will be pretty minor. And then please be aware that there will be one training session held for the carriers that will focus on CPSS. And again, this training session is specifically for carriers that are interested in submitting a proposal for FY27.

So please let Mike Connor or me know if you would like to attend, so that we can add you to that invitation. The training session will be held on February 5th, at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and IT will do a live demo and hold a Q&A session during the training session. And then this training session will be recorded, so even if you cannot attend, please just let us know so that we can provide a copy to you.

Okay, so there's a lot of information here, but this is the anticipated CPSS schedule. So here at the top, again, is the vendor training session that I just discussed.

CPSS proposal submission will open up on Monday, February 9th, and it will close on Wednesday, March 4th. Group 1 submission window will open on the same day as the proposal submission window opens, and it will close on the same day that the proposal submission window closes. So again, Group 1 will open on Monday, February 9th, 2026. And it will close on Wednesday, March 4th, 2026. And then Group 2 will open on March 30th and will close on Friday, April 10th. And then Group 3 will open on Monday, April 20th, 2026, and close on Friday, April 24th, 2026. So one difference this year is you'll notice, for previous participants, a gap between Group 2 and Group 3. Group 2 will close, and then there will be a little gap, and then Group 3 will open. And if you have any questions about this, please just let Mike Connor or myself know. But I also just want to emphasize what James was discussing earlier. Please allow for time to make these submissions. We don't want any of these submissions to end up being late due to technical errors or issues or anything like that, so please just be conscious of that.

Okay, so now we're going to discuss at a very high level final proposal revisions, and these are just reminders. So, Final Proposal Revisions, or FPRs, are the final opportunity before award to make any changes to your proposal, or to your offers that you've already submitted in the previous submission window. And I just want to highlight, this is a decision that will be made by the contracting officer, so they're not mandatory, it will be up to the CO's discretion. But we also want to ask that you ensure that your offers are updated to reflect any changes in your schedules. And then keep in mind that even though we will provide you with a negotiation letter with some highlighted line items, please know that all offers that you had previously made for all groups could be revised at this time. And, I will pass it back to Mike Connor. Thank you.

Michael Connor:

Okay, I'll run through the timeline real quick here. The final release of the RFP is going to be in February and the vendor proposal submissions in March. I know Matt just gave you these exact dates, so I'll run through them quickly. The anticipated release of the Final RFP is February 9th. The vendor proposals submission will close on March 4th. The special board initial review is going to be in April timeframe. And then we see where we close Groups 2 and 3, and final FPR [if exercised] will be at the end of April timeframe. The Special Board's final review will be in May, and then, of course, in July is the award.

So now I'm going to run through some of the significant changes that we've made to the RFP, here's a list of where the changes are being made in the RFP. These are going to be a bit repetitive from the last time. We need to go through them, and let you see where the changes are. We added the definition of the contract, non-refundable fare , discussed earlier. On the next slide, this is simply the three-character code that we're assigning to the non-refundable with the same definition.

We have a little more information on the pricing schedule for the non-refundable. A couple of points on this slide are that the non-refundable will not be a basic economy fare. It'll be priced lower than the YCA and the _CA, if there is a _CA;

if not, lower than the YCA.

This is saying that, the fare class for the _CN, the non-refundable, if available it must be provided to the government traveler. It also points out that the fares are subject to advanced ticketing within 24 hours of booking.

Okay, and this slide, points out that once the traveler's booked or ticketed, the booking will be held for them. These are nothing new, it's new because we're adding it all for the _CN.

And here, the _CN is no different than any other fare classes when it comes to governing regulations, as well as the airport codes for domestic line items, So, again, we updated the connections for [non-extended connect] domestic routes to 160 minutes.

And here we updated the connections for international routes Groups 1 and 2 Connect for 270 minutes, and Extended Connect 480 minutes.

And again, we updated the international routes 4,001 miles and more to have a maximum circuity of 150% now.

And this is just showing it because this was specifically the business class line item, so here's the changes in red, the 270 minutes and the 480. Same as the non-business.

Technical requirements, again, just showing that the business class is included in that circuity change as well.

Okay, temporary reduction. So, again, the temporary reduction of services for at least 14 days has been extended to 180 days. So the carrier remains responsible to notify the GSA if they resume meeting minimums by the 179th day in order for the line item to be reinstated.

And here, we're just showing where we removed the old language for the reduction.

And here's the price reduction, so should the carrier decide to reduce the price now, it's a minimum of 7 days instead of the 30 that it was before.

Okay. So, here's an update to Section M, the evaluation factors for awards. For the Group 1 line items, technical and non-price-related factors are significantly more important than price.

And here's an update to the language about fares. Not included in the award decision, which now the non-refundable falls into, so that's really the basis for the changes of this section here.

This is the same language as before, just another section of the RFP that it falls into, so it is significantly more than price, significantly more important than price. And this was all to align with the FAR changes.

Okay, so just some reminders. Please reach out to us via email if you notice a market that: is not in the right group, or if any airlines would be unable to meet the minimum requirements. And a reminder, that the business class fare can be offered in any market, and premium economy can only be made in any international market.

I'll move on to the market selection and information. Here's a breakdown of the solicited markets, and you can see where we've made the changes from FY26. Part of the reason Group 2 went down and Group 3 went up is, if there was a line item in Group 2 last year, and we received no offers, we would have moved it to 3, hoping for a better chance to get some offers on it. Obviously, Group 3 is up a lot, and the reason is, we are looking to drive competition and increase offers.

Here is a deeper understanding of the market breakdown, it breaks it into international domestic, the non-extended connects, extended connect business, and it shows where the non-refundables are going to show up.

Okay, so, next is just our contact information, and if anybody has any questions, feel free to ask. We'll be looking for those emails if you have questions.

If we have nothing else, let's see if Mary wants to close us out.

Thanks again. That was rather quick we really went through that, huh? But yeah, there's a lot of people on the call and we really thank you for taking the time out today, to walk through with my team the changes that are being made in the FY27 solicitation, and we really look forward to this next cycle with everyone. I know we're not even halfway through FY26, but, you know, we'll be looking forward to FY27 as well.

I believe we sent out the slides an hour before the meeting, but if you specifically didn't get it for some reason, please just email Jennifer Burdette and we can send them to you.

I did see another question just come through [in the chat] that mentioned a change. Refund changes. C.13. Can we go to that specific slide?

Matthew Racchini:

So I can discuss that. We actually had some modifications to change this, so it's not new, for FY27. It is new for this solicitation [compared to FY26 RFP at initial release], though. But basically, so in terms of post-payment audits, this was previously handled by a GSA office. That has now been delegated to the agencies that are making the purchase. So that's the only change here. So, when the RFP was released a year ago, this was done by an office within GSA, but now it's being done by the various federal agencies.

Sorry, there wasn't a slide because that change actually occurred last year, but I think you mentioned it, because this year it would be new in the solicitation.

And, you know, after you kind of take all this all in, if you have additional questions, please just reach out. We are here and can assist in any way. Otherwise, thank you, and we're gonna give you some time back in your day.

Conference concluded.