bidding for a huge Airport contract.

And BAS is now in talks with other potential overseas partners, chief executive officer Mr. Eugene Bean said yesterday.

BAS -- which has been providing ground service, technical maintenance, and cargo customer service at the Airport since 1947 -- had hoped to bid on the Airport infrastructure contract with AlliedSignal Technical Services Corp. of Columbia, Maryland.

AlliedSignal, again teamed with BAS, was one of only two bidders on the other major Airport contract, which was to handle air operations. AlliedSignal lost out to Serco Aviation Services Inc. of Canada.

At the time, AlliedSignal said it was still interested in the three-year infrastructure contract, which Management and Technology Minister the Hon.

Grant Gibbons has said could be more costly on an annual basis than the $4.4 million a year Serco will be paid.

But AlliedSignal did not attend a bidders' conference held in Bermuda this week, and an official said yesterday the company has decided not to bid.

"We're not interested,'' said Mr. Cliff Benson of AlliedSignal. "Looking at the previous procurement, based on our experience there, we probably would not be competitive.'' Dr. Gibbons has said that AlliedSignal's bid on the earlier contract was more than 40 percent more costly than Serco's.

Mr. Benson also said there was "a tremendous amount of risk'' in the request for proposal on the infrastructure contract. It seeks a fixed price to provide services like operating runway lighting and ground support, and back-up water and sewage, he said. The contract also includes maintaining roads, buildings, and other systems at the 1,200-acre US Naval Air Station at St. David's. The Navy leaves on September 1.

With AlliedSignal withdrawing from the bidding, BAS will not be bidding on the infrastructure contract on its own, and will be concentrating on winning some of the "peripheral'' work, Mr. Bean said.

However, "we've been approached by several of the bidders,'' he said.

"Should one of them be successful, we'll have a role to play there.'' Of firms invited to bid on the infrastructure contract, two others have declined. Johnson Controls of Florida, which declined to bid on the earlier contract, has declined again, said director of marketing (base closures) Mr.

Hal Fuller.

Johnson Controls has no complaints about the deadline for tenders, but "our workload is so heavy that we will not be able to participate,'' Mr. Fuller said.

Also out of the bidding is J.A. Jones Management Services Inc., of Charlotte, North Carolina. "We decided to do a no-bid mainly because of time constraints,'' said office administrator Ms Becky Montgomery.

Still in the running are: Serco Canada's parent company, Serco-IAL of the United Kingdom: Brown & Root Services Corp. of Houston, Tex., Day & Zimmerman Services of South Carolina; Frontec of Ottawa; Global/Belmont JV Ltd. of Reston, Va.; Halifax Corp. of Virginia; and Lockheed Air Terminal Inc., California.

All of those companies were represented at a two-day bidders' conference in Bermuda this week.

To date, 14 Bermuda companies have expressed interest in working as sub-contractors on the infrastructure contract.

Tenders are to be submitted in January. A decision is expected in mid-February, with the winning contractor starting work in April.

Government's infrastructure consultant, Acres International of Canada, helped to prepared the request for proposals.

The number of buildings that will be maintained under the contract has been sharply scaled back because of the cost involved.