eAPIS experience

[Paul462]

I had an e-mail exchange and telephone conversation with CBP Officer Ralph Modisette today, which yielded the following info:

1. There are three CBP officers manning the General Aviation e-apis desk: Officers Ralph Modisette, Michelle Bernal, and Eric Rodriguez (part time). Their phone number is (972)973-9844, generally manned (or woman-ed) 8 AM - 5 PM Central time. Sometimes an e-mail inquiry will get a faster response.

2. Offcr. Modisette claims that on average the flight permit is e-mailed back 1 - 2 minutes after the manifest is submitted.

3. No PAX profiles are contemplated to be included in the e-apis software due to cost.

4. The only private companies certified as e-apis portals are ARINC and FLTPlan.com.

5. Officer Modisette had the following e-mailed comments to offer:

You may depart from any US port or place. The field help associated with the Departure “Airport” field addresses this situation:

“Enter the ICAO airport code corresponding to the last domestic port of departure. For a complete list of airport codes select the Options button to the right of the field. If the airport code is not found, chose the airport code closest to your departure site. If you’re not leaving from the airport location, enter details of departure location below.”

The “Airport” field is used to assign the departure manifest to the correct CBP airport of departure, but the “Departure Location Description” field is the port or place from where you actually depart.

Hope this helps,

Ralph D. Modisette

and:

Once you have submitted a manifest through eAPIS, if you need to add additional travelers, you can submit another manifest with the same flight information. It is not necessary to resubmit the travelers that have already been transmitted, but you will need to resubmit the pilot each time as eAPIS always requires a pilot for each manifest.

For deleting travelers, once a manifest has been submitted, travelers cannot be deleted. It is not necessary to do anything further.

Changing of airports and/or times does not need to be completed in eAPIS as long as the flight is on the same date. For these changes, please contact the affected CBP airport. If there is a change to the date of a flight, a new manifest should be submitted through eAPIS.

eApis does not currently have the option available to cancel a manifest once it has been submitted. To ensure that a CBP officer does not respond to a cancelled flight, please contact the affected CBP airport to advise of the cancellation.

If you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

Hope this helps,

Ralph D. Modisette

6. Ernie, please advise your impressions after trying out the lobolabs.com beta version. It seems like it could be worthwhile.

[Ernie Martin]

Situation unchanged from the "Update" on my last posting: Lobo was to send me a new version with most/all squawks fixed and I will help get all the hiccups out.

However, while working on the old version that had bugs, I found ways of getting around the bugs, principally because you can inspect and edit the xml file created by Lobo to correct the "fatal" errors (see my earlier posting). One other thing is that the xml file should be viewed using Internet Explorer, because your entries are in bold black while the overhead/boilerplate text is in a muted red, so any errors stand out. To fix them, use a text editor like Notepad, not a word processor which may introduce extraneous formatting.

Ernie

[Ernie Martin]

Update on the Lobo Labs FlashPass system (one-time $60 charge, 45 days free trial): All prior bugs fixed. Minor improvements under way.

My comment of 2 weeks ago that it holds the promise of making the process a snap is now a reality. You put all pertinent data in one time, not just passenger data but also manifests for regular trips, and when a trip comes up you just take one of the manifests, change date and time of departure (it adjusts arrival date/time), add or delete passenger names, and you're done. For the return trip, there's a "clone" feature that reverses the trip. It saves in your computer an XML file which you simply upload to CBP after logging into their system. Well worth it if you fly overseas often. (Disclaimer: I've helped with the development, making it ultra-user-friendly, especially for US residents, but have done it pro bono and have no financial or other interest in the company or the product.)

Ernie

[Paul462]

Ernie,

Thanks for the work and evaluation you've done on the Lobo Labs FlashPass product. Which is the latest Rev. (which includes your improvements), and do you know if that's the one currently downloadable from Lobo Labs?

[Ernie Martin]

The latest version, with not only the fixes but a number of improvements, is FlashPass Release 0.17 - RC7. Click on the link "Released" in barely-visible blue right under What's Up? near the top of the Home page at www.lobolabs.com. That will take you to the download page.

I just saw this version, so I haven't checked it, but the download page shows the changes made since RC6 (which I had checked and all the bugs had been fixed). The changes listed include minor improvements I had suggested to make data entry even faster, especially for US residents. For example in the RC6 version you had to input phone and email addresses for all persons, even though Customs wants these only for crew, not passengers; in RC7 this has been fixed. Also in RC6 the country default was Mexico, so every time you entered a US person you had to scroll through the list of all countries to change it; now, when you start, as part of your Preferences, you can specify the default country and state.

Download RC7, play with it during the 45 day trial, and check the resulting xml files by opening it with Internet Explorer. This is the file that goes to Customs, and IE displays it in a very clear format where your entries are in bold black letters and the descriptive tags (the boilerplate) is in a muted wine color. At a glance you can see if it's good.

Ernie

[Paul462]

Reviewing the AOPA APIS tutorial, it appears a decal number is a required data element to procure a departure or entry permit.

Is this true!?? Does that mean if a decal hasen't been purchased (which could take weeks), you can't fly out of this country?

[Rick Gardner]

Hello Paul, the CBP decal is not a REQUIRED data element and can be ommitted. You will still need to have a decal. I would recommend getting a decal before you leave the country because if not, then you will have to fill out forms at the CBP station,, FAX them etc.

When you take a step back, it is hard to make any sense of the new CBP rule.