CAA has reviewed its contingency plans and operational resilience for dealing with larger scale repatriation operations and is now enhancing these arrangements. This entails working in collaboration with the aviation industry, improving charter market intelligence and acquiring expertise in flight planning and charter air broking. This tender exercise is for the procurement of a Charter Air Broker (Service Provider) who will work in collaboration with CAA and potentially other third party providers, to undertake efficient and effective repatriation operations that provide the best possible service to consumers who are abroad at the time of an ATOL Holder failure. The Service Provider will be required at short-notice to form a team of individuals with the right technical and operational skills and experience, and in sufficient numbers to work with CAA in managing a repatriation operation. This will entail the Service Provider undertaking:
i. Contingency Planning;
ii. Flight Planning;
iii. Securing Aircraft (Broking); and
iv. Flight Administration and Reconciliation.
Bidders interested in delivering the services must ensure and provide evidence that they meet the following minimum qualification requirements:
i. IATA accredited with full ticketing facilities;
ii. Have access to (non-IATA) low cost airline inventory with full ticketing facilities;
iii. Hold an Air Travel Organiser's Licence (ATOL);
iv. Are able to provide 24/7 in-house (not sub-contracted or outsourced) Flight Watch throughout the course of a repatriation operation. (Flight Watch includes but is not limited to the continuous monitoring and recording of contracted airline service performance and resolving operational issues arising).
Due to the nature of the CAA's requirements only an estimate Framework agreement value can be provided, we are not able to predict if, or how many failures may occur. Our estimate is that the value of the Framework Agreement may be between the sums of 10 000 GBP to 1 000 000 GBP over the Agreement term.
Further information can be found in the tender documentation.