Amentum books $1.3B CBP aircraft maintenance contract

After multiple awards and rounds of protests, Amentum can now tout itself as the winner of and start to work on a nearly $1.3 billion aircraft maintenance contract with the Customs and Border Protection agency.

Work started on Oct. 1 and will take place over one initial base year and up to nine individual option years, Amentum said Thursday. CBP could also extend the contract for another three months after the final option year.

CBP selected a proposal by the former DynCorp International, which Amentum completed the acquisition of in late 2020. All bids for the National Aviation Maintenance and Logistics Services contract were due in August 2018.

The agency’s most recent attempt at an award of the contract took place in January of this year and the DynCorp bid won out in that evaluation.

Incumbent PAE then filed a protest that the Government Accountability Office denied in June, shortly after which the company took its argument to the Court of Federal Claims. The judge overseeing the case denied PAE’s protest in August, which then cleared the way for Amentum to start the work.

All told: CBP made three attempts at an award of the contract including the most recent one that were subsequently protested. The first two awards were pulled back each time so CBP could re-evaluate and get revised proposals from the bidders.

CBP’s fleet comprises of 211 aircraft throughout the Western hemisphere that include military and non-military, fixed- and rotary-wing, single- and multi-engine platforms.

Some of the homeland security missions being supported include investigations, intelligence gathering, border security, humanitarian and disaster responses.