[Protest of Proposed FAA Award of Lease for Facilities and Services To Support Training School]

A firm protested the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) proposed award of a lease for training school facilities and support services. The protester contended that FAA: (1) did not evaluate bids according to its criteria; (2) failed to conduct meaningful discussions; (3) included improper evaluation criteria in its solicitation and failed to include certain necessary criteria; and (4) improperly relied upon lower cost as an award consideration. GAO found that: (1) although the FAA evaluation contained minor errors, the relevant information was factually correct and the errors did not disturb the technical rankings; (2) the FAA bid evaluations were consistent with the solicitation's criteria; (3) FAA did not hold discussions with the protester because it correctly decided that the subject matter was not within the protester's control; (4) the portion of the protest concerning improper or missing criteria was untimely; and (5) since the solicitation did not indicate the evaluation factors' relative importance, FAA was correct in considering each one equally. Accordingly, the protest was dismissed in part and denied in part.