Kieran Daly/MAASTRICHT
HUGHES AIRCRAFT has become the first company to detail its planned consortium to bid to develop and build the UK's proposed Scottish Air Traffic Control Centre.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority's National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is expected to release a request for proposals to address the $300 million requirement in the second half of this year.
It hopes to award a contract by the end of the year, although the potential bidders express scepticism over that timetable - one suggesting that a mid-1996 award is more likely.
The deal, one of the biggest air-traffic-control (ATC) prizes on offer, is controversial in the UK as it was to have been funded by industry under the Government's NATS-privatisation plan.
NATS has conceded reluctantly that, after the delay of the privatisation, it will have to use the Government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) mechanism, under which it will lease the centre from the private sector. Senior CAA officials, are determined to stave off further use of PFIs, however, while welcoming the privatisation plan.
The chosen technique means that the bidders are likely to form relationships with merchant banks to arrange finance, and will need construction partners.
At the ATC '95 exhibition in Maastricht, on 21-23 February, Hughes Europe manager of ATC business development Tom Harvey revealed that Hughes' team includes, Hambros Bank, alongside ATC requirements expert Praxis, ATC-provider Serco-IAL and Laing Construction.
Others interested include Loral, Thomson-CSF and Trafalgar House of the UK. Raytheon is not bidding, believing, it is understood, that Loral, owner of the former IBM Federal Systems Group, will be difficult to beat. IBM developed the New En-route Centre for NATS and has been a major supplier at London's Drayton Centre.
Source: Flight International
