REDLANDS, Calif. 25 Oct. 2008. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded ESRI a multiyear enterprise license arrangement (ELA) through a Blanket Purchase Agreement under the GSA Schedule 70. FAA is a longtime user of ESRI software for applications including obstruction evaluation, charting, airspace evaluations, aeronautical data management, minimum vectoring altitudes, facilities management, noise monitoring and modeling, and environmental assessment.
This agreement broadens geographic information software (GIS) deployment into new areas such as instrument approach procedure development, safety, resource allocation, and automated notice to airmen (NOTAM), ESRI officials say. In addition, it supports the initiatives FAA is currently implementing to improve its software licensing procedures with a goal to increase performance, improve customer service, and reduce costs.
The ELA promises to reduce procurement time by decreasing the amount of research necessary to source GIS software, minimize the development of technical documents, and condense the requests for bids and the subsequent evaluation of offers. The contract will further decrease costs, reduce paperwork, and save time by eliminating the need for repetitive, individual purchases from the current schedule contract, ESRI officials say.
The FAA has 46,338 employees and other support staff, the vast majority providing air traffic services and maintaining the airspace system. The airlines are expected to carry a record 776 million passengers within the United States during 2008, and that number is projected to grow to one billion passengers by 2016, ESRI officials say.
