Aviation sector: Twelve check in for BA contract

Twelve companies in the running for a British Airways (BA) facilities management contract potentially worth £450m a year met at British Airways' Waterside offices last week to view the property they could win the tender to manage.

Under a scheme entitled Workplace 2002, BA said it plans to change the way the workplace services are run, procured and managed within the airline's 1m sq m UK property portfolio.

Alison Hartigan, senior property manager at BA, said 29 companies responded to BA's request for information. This was shortlisted to the 12, which met last week.

Representatives from Amec Services, Amey Business Services, Aqumen, Carillion Services, Chesterton Managed Services, Citex, Drake & Scull, Interserve FM, Johnson Controls, OCS, Planned Maintenance Engineering and Taylor Woodrow met at the Waterside offices to hear how BA hopes the three-year programme will reduce costs by 15 per cent in the first year.

Hartigan said the contract is likely to be a combined venture and it was important that the companies could interact.

Contracts in the first year are said to be worth around £50m. This value is likely to increase as additional services are added, said Hartigan. The deal will also include mailroom, catering and reprographics services.

BA's current contract with Drake & Scull expires on 31 March 2002, as do all other service contracts, except the Bax Global five-year contract held by Opus 4. Hartigan said the simultaneous expiry of the contracts was designed to allow for widespread changes. Many of the existing suppliers didn't get through the tendering process.

George Stinnes, head of investor relations at BA said the company needed 'to improve profitability' because 'times are really tough'. To reduce costs BA needs 'to innovate', he said, and 'improving asset efficiency' would help. 'The business of BA is flying planes and that's what they need to stick to,' he added.

Bidders were told BA expected a 'visionary' document and they would be evaluated in five areas — approach, service delivery, financial performance, commercial performance, and the methods of their delivery model.

Health and safety, the environment, company culture and business continuity, are also important factors.

Bidders have to submit a 50-page document by mid-August. A shortlist of around six to eight will be notified by the end of August. In mid-October, this will be narrowed to between one and four. 'The programme is tight but that keeps it focused. We've got to keep it driving,' Hartigan said.