Aviation Infrastructure

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) report to Congress recommending that it award a contract to an alternate contractor for the development of its Alaska National Airspace System Interfacility Communications System, focusing on whether the findings were properly supported. FAA's report compared the alternate contractor's costs to the costs of two other commercial telecommunications providers.

GAO noted that: (1) given FAA's assumptions and the circumstances of the study, the agency's findings and conclusions were supported by the information available; (2) FAA's analysis were consistently applied to each of the alternatives and performed in accordance with standard economic and engineering methods of calculation; and (3) however, the findings and conclusion of its study could have been strengthened if FAA had held more-in-depth discussions with AT&T and General Communication, Inc., about the assumptions and the adjustments it made to the data the vendors provided, since the results were influenced by these assumptions.