Frontex is looking for EU Contractors to provide a fully-fledged service with manned fixed wing aircraft for aerial surveillance over sea which includes: a. aircraft; b. sufficient number of crew members (pilot, sensor operator, technician, etc.) in order to be able to deliver minimum 2 flight missions per day without any limitation; c. sufficient number of Liaison officer(s) in the assigned Operation Coordination Centre (Host MS ICC or Frontex HQ) during the entire deployment period, who will be working on the tasks related to the flight from 60 minutes before the moment of a take-off to 60 minutes following the landing; d. maintenance capability; e. data transmission capability via BRLOS (including near real time video streaming of the EO/IR) to the Operation Coordination Centre; f. logistical infrastructure and ground support (e.g. hangar, parking place of the aircraft, fuel, etc.); g. administrative responsibility (management of any permissions related to registration, certification, transportation, deployment, authorizations, insurances, permissions to fly, etc.) to deliver aerial surveillance over the external maritime border of the Host Country; h. the Contractor shall provide the collected data directly from the Asset to the designated Frontex Coordination Centre via BRLOS with a minimum uplink speed of 512 kbps. The Service which the Contractor shall provide under this FWC is based on mission flights where the Asset, following Frontex instructions, surveys the Area of Interest, included in the Service Deployment Area, searching for ‘objects of interest’ mandated by Frontex Regulation, and passing surveillance data and information to the Operational Coordination Centre designated by Frontex. Aircraft shall be able: - to reach the Area of Interest (surveillance area) located at a distance of more than 401NM from the Base Airport and; - deliver minimum 2.5 hours mission flight in the Area of Interest with the average speed as of approximately 150 knots, between 1000 feet and 6000 feet and return back to the base airport and; - to perform a total minimum of 6 hours of flight (excluding final reserve and contingency fuel) with 2 Frontex liaison officers on board in line with the requirements above, with the minimum mandatory Payload. These missions may also take place over Third Country (TC) waters, TC land territory, as well as to be operated from TC Base Airport. The aircraft has an approved life-raft drop capability (each life-raft has at least 10 PAX capacity, on board the total dropping capacity should secure enough life raft(s) for minimum 30 PAX) and in case of activation of life-raft drop the deployed aircraft can continue its mission flight (without an early landing) and after landing the second mission flight with full operational configuration (including life rafts) may take place within 60 minutes. Contracting Authority will consider as advantage the emergency broadcast system on the life raft 406 or 121.5 MHZ. Optionally, the aircraft can have the drop capability of life buoys able to broadcast minimum their position for at least 48 hours. The Contractor shall guarantee that the Asset is equipped with the following sensors: a. HD multi-sensor Electro-Optical/ Infrared camera for day and night operations; b. Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver; c. Weather detection and avoidance system according to EASA and competent authorities’ prescriptions and certification requirements for the given type of Aircraft, in order to be able to perform all the type of flights requested by the prospective framework contract, following day and night IFR and VFR flight rules; d. Dedicated Maritime Surveillance Radar: minimum requirement to operate in X band and track minimum 500 simultaneous targets; e. Global navigation satellite system receiver; f. (Optional) Anti-jamming equipment in GNSS denied environment; g. Satellite phone. Duration of the future FWC: 2+2 years
Aircraft crew and pilots must be physically deployed at the Base Airport (defined per Specific Contract, e.g. Lampedusa, Italy in the hypothetical scenario) for the entire duration of each SC (ToR-21) CLO(s) must be physically deployed on a daily basis at the designated Coordination Centre — Frontex HQ in Warsaw, Poland in the hypothetical SC scenario — for the full duration of the effective deployment (ToR-34, Section 1.2.8) ICT specialist(s) must be deployed to Frontex HQ in Warsaw to prepare communication capacity before the first effective day of each SC (Section 1.2.8) Operational test flight must be conducted in person at the first indicated base airport before the first effective day of mission (Section 1.2.6) Daily pre-flight briefing and post-flight debriefing at the base airport, with venue guaranteed by the Contractor (Section 1.2.5) Aircraft and crew must be able to relocate to a new Base Airport within 6 calendar days upon Contracting Authority request (ToR-28) No tasks or meetings are explicitly permitted to be conducted fully online or remotely in the documents, except the conditional option for AMSO tasks to be performed remotely from a ground control station (ToR-33)
The Tenderer and any involved entity are asked to prove that it has legal capacity to perform the contract and the regulatory capacity to pursue the professional activity necessary to carry out the work subject to this call for tenders. The obligation to provide the supporting evidence will be waived in the following situations: if the same documents have already been provided in a previous award procedure of Frontex, have been issued no more than one year before the date of the deadline for submission of the offer and are still valid; if such evidence can be accessed by the Contracting Authority on a national database free of charge, in which case the economic operator shall provide the Contracting Authority with the internet address of the database and, if needed, the necessary identification data to retrieve the document; if there is a material impossibility to provide such evidence.
Tenderers must comply with the following selection criteria in order to prove that they have the necessary economic and financial capacity to perform the contract.
The tenderer must have at least three years of experience in the field of providing specialised operations (defined in Commission Regulation (EU) No 965/2012). The Tenderer shall demonstrate its technical ability to provide all the services and products required in this call for tenders.
The Tenderer shall be able to provide a team of experts matching the requirements specified in the Terms of Reference. Required roles/profiles include: Pilot(s) (mandatory for the type of asset proposed), Airborne Mission System Operator(s) (AMSO) (mandatory to operate the mission systems on board), and at least 1 Contractor's Liaison Officer (CLO).
Any entity involved in the tender (see Section I.5), must not be subject to professional conflicting interests which may negatively affect the contract performance. Where the Contracting Authority has established such conflicting interests, it may conclude that the tenderer or an involved entity does not possess the required professional capacity to perform the contract to an appropriate quality standard. The presence of conflicting interests shall be examined during the evaluation phase based on the statements made through the Declarations on Honour (Annex V) and, where applicable, the commitment letters (Annex VII and Annex IX).
Published 25 June 2026 · rebuilt nightly from the official notice.