Minister responsible for the Bases feels Government handled the Airport contract properly.

Still, Management and Technology Minister the Hon. Grant Gibbons said it was "distressing'' that he did not receive negative feedback from invited bidders until after the deadline for proposals had passed.

"Clearly, it's a competitive process, but one would have expected if people were very inconvenienced, they would have been very adamant about the time line,'' Dr. Gibbons told The Royal Gazette .

Although nine American and British companies were invited to bid on all or part of the contract, only two proposals were received by the September 30 deadline.

The successful bidder is to be selected this month.

As well as a tight time deadline, contractors who did not bid have cited unhappiness with the nature of the request for proposals, late changes to the scope of the contract, and an "organisational conflict of interest'' by which a company involved in writing the specifications for the contract was also invited to bid.

"In any competitive process, you're always going to get some people who would have liked to have done it differently,'' Dr. Gibbons said. But he felt Government and its team did "a very fine job given the tremendous pressure that everybody was under, and the very short time line.'' The changes to the contract, which were due to ongoing talks with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Bermuda Fire Service, were both made known at a conference in Bermuda on August 24, to which all bidders were invited, he said.

Dr. Gibbons noted that the tight time line was "not of our choosing,'' but was dictated by the US Navy.

And despite criticism, Dr. Gibbons said Government has received "two very strong and competitive bids.'' One bid is from Serco Aviation Services. Serco's inclusion in the bidding has been controversial because of the large United Kingdom company's purchase of Thompson Hickling Aviation Inc. of Canada -- the company Government hired to write the specifications for the contract.

The other bidder is Allied Signal Technical Services Inc. of the United States. It has teamed up with Bermuda Aviation Services, Barton ATC Inc., and AeroMet Inc. The latter two companies, both from the United States, were among the nine companies invited to bid.