Sole Source JA- Award Notice.pdf

Justification and Approval For

Other than Full and Open Competition

1. Contracting Agency: Defense Human Resource Activity- Procurement Support Office 4800 Mark Center Dr, Suite 07G12, Alexandria, VA 22350

2. Authority Cited: 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), FAR 6.302-1 -- Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.

3. Description of Supplies and Services: The Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO) requires Commercial Travel Office (CTO) services for Department of Defense (DoD) travelers assigned to the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) sites (Travel Area 103): Des Moines, IA, HQ MEPCOM, IL, Chicago, IL, Indianapolis, IN, Minneapolis, MN, Lansing, MI, Detroit, MI, Fargo, ND, Sioux Falls, SD, and Milwaukee, WI.

The Government requires the continuation of official travel management and related additional services on a point of sale basis for Department of Defense (DoD) travelers assigned to these MEPS sites. These CTO services are to support official travel activities of authorized DoD travelers who are under the authority of the referenced locations. Official travel is travel (e.g., TDY, PCS, evacuation, travel by Reserve Component members, and civilians on invitational travel orders) in connection with official business of the United States Government and performed under orders at the expense of federal appropriated funds. These CTO services shall be provided using both traditional methods and automated methods using the Defense Travel System (DTS) web portal.

4. Description of Action: A firm fixed price sole source bridge contract is planned with a base period of performance of June 1, 2012 through March 31, 2013 with one 3-month option period.

These contract services are required from the incumbent contractor, Alexander Travel, to bridge the period between the expiration of the current contract and the award of the competed follow-on requirement. The total estimated value of this proposed action is $423,972.94 however, it will not be necessary to obligate funding because CTO services are paid with the Government travel charge card at the time of ticket issuance.

5. Reason for Authority Cited: Providing uninterrupted travel services for the benefit of the Travel Area 103 MEPS sites are critical in sustaining the effort of DoD’s warfigher. Failure to continue CTO services by the incumbent for these sites will cause significant negative impact to critical military operations accomplished by the MEPS community and DoD as a whole. The nation’s military recruits must be allowed to travel to their assigned basic training bases. In this particular situation, conducting a competitive re-procurement of travel services would result in unacceptable delays in fulfilling agency requirements. Delay would be highly detrimental to DoD. A new provider would require a minimum implementation 3 of 60 days to allow time to ramp up their operations, following award, in preparation for providing travel services. The incumbent is able to provide uninterrupted travel services immediately following award which results in no disruption, delay or harm to the Government.

DoD’s travel requirements for these MEPS sites are substantial and include travel relating to both important “day to day” activities of the DoD and travel directly related to recruit processing.

During FY 11, approximately 26,040 air and rail tickets were booked through the incumbent CTO provider for these DoD Sites. This equates to an average of approximately 2,170 tickets per month. There is no ready means for DoD to arrange travel of this volume without the aid of a CTO provider. Consequently, failure to continue CTO services would be a substantial hardship to DoD and would harm warfighter operations.

To ensure that CTO services for the DoD MEPS sites are uninterrupted, CTO services must be obtained from the incumbent CTO provider, Alexander Travel, a small business Vendor.

Alexander Travel has successfully provided these services to date and is the only vendor that can meet the bridge requirement without substantial disruption to DoD travel. Historically, CTO vendors require approximately 60 days to transition from the incumbent CTO to a new CTO provider. During this transition period, the following activities typically take place: request and receive Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) and Airline Reporting Corporation (ARC) number to issue tickets if required, which can take up to eight weeks; hire new personnel; organize and arrange telecommunication connectivity with the installation; request and receive Pseudo City Code (PCC) if required, which can take up to six weeks to obtain; install Global Distribution System (GDS); submit Passenger Name Record (PNR) validation worksheet with the active PCC to the DTMO 30 days prior to the contract start date; and obtain new Centrally Billed Account travel charge cards.

It is in the Government’s vital interest to sole source the bridge contract to the incumbent, Alexander Travel, to ensure continuity of these critical CTO services. This will maintain the status quo by sole sourcing the contractual relationship with the incumbent until the re-competed contract for the MEPS sites can be awarded. Furthermore, it meets both the minimum requirements of the Government and reflects sound business judgment.

6. Effort to Obtain Competition: Since no contractor but the incumbent is capable of accomplishing the work without incurring unacceptable delays and unacceptable disruptions in service, no efforts have been made to obtain competition for this sole-source “bridge” contract.

A notice of the Government’s intent to award on a sole source basis will be posted on FedBizOpps and interested offerors will have the opportunity to submit a capability statement for consideration by the Government.

7. Effort to remove barriers to/increase competition: The requested action seeks a short-term sole-source contract as an interim solution until the Government can implement its comprehensive recompete strategy to award a competitive contract for the MEPS sites by February 2013, with effective performance starts, or implementations, by May 2013. As part of the Government’s strategy, the existing six MEPS travel areas will be consolidated into two travel areas so future MEPS contracts will be streamlined and standardized. The Government anticipates that the future MEPS contracts will be awarded as Small Business Set-Asides.

8. Market Research: Although there are capable service providers in the market who currently provide these travel services, in this instance, award to any vendor other than the incumbent would be detrimental to DoD, resulting in unacceptable delays and service disruption.

9. Interested Sources: The Government did not advertise this requirement via Federal Business Opportunities, such as by issuing a Sources Sought or pre-solicitation notice, so no sources have expressed interest in the anticipated sole-source requirement.