Member's Home Forums General Discussion Mexico Mexico Aeronautical & Regulatory Mexico APIS - Results of third meeting

PRELUDE
Since the implementation of the Mexico APIS on December 31, 2013, we have been looking for reasonable options to provide to those pilots who wished to comply with the new Law. At the same time, we have reached out to Mexican Government officials to find ways to make it more practical and economical for pilots to comply. We have been fortunate that the Director General of Verification and Control for Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM) has granted us several opportunities to meet with him and his staff since the beginning of the year to discuss our concerns about the Mexico APIS implementation and the challenges it presents for GA pilots. These meetings occurred in Mexico City on January 14, 2014, February 04, 2014 and again on April 04, 2014. During that time we had also sent a detailed analysis of the issues General Aviation pilots faced with the published guidelines along with recommendations and justifications. We also sent real-life examples that demonstrate the type of situations faced by General Aviation flights and how each of these situations was addressed by our proposals. The issues we have raised all along are:

• Recognizing the size, demographics, capabilities and limitations of General Aviation as well as its importance on tourism
• The lack of a FREE public APIS portal is detrimental to attracting General Aviation tourism to Mexico and that a FREE portal should be implemented
• The reporting requirements and timing for filing manifests is incompatible with the limitations of General Aviation and that the implementation of APIS for private flights should be postponed until changes are made. Our recommendation was to allow manifests to be submitted well in advance of a flight while pilots have access to computers at home or at hotels and that only changes to crew or passengers would require a new manifest to be submitted. All other changes could be made via telephone
• Invite members from the Mexican and USA aviation communities to participate on a committee to review the procedures and work with Immigration on establishing new guidelines that are compatible with General Aviation
• That in addition to a public portal, private companies be allowed to participate in the transmission of APIS manifests as in the USA to promote competition, flexibility etc.
• That the revised procedures include the issuance of a document by the Mexican government to the person filing an APIS confirming compliance with APIS requirements
• Consideration be given to using the USA CBP manifest as an option for compliance as the information contained is identical (with the exception of country of birth for passengers)
• That everything be published via NOTAM and the Mexico AIP

During this time, Mexican Immigration officials have stressed to us:
> They cannot postpone the process, Mexican laws do not allow them to make unilateral decisions of this nature and that implementation had officially begun
> They CAN and will adjust the procedures to better accommodate General Aviation
> That they cannot establish a date when the implementation goes from evaluation into enforcement mode
> That the APIS program is being managed centrally and that is why officials at the airports are not aware of the details
> That the implementation process has been handled on a good faith basis

The CURRENT STATUS of the Mexico APIS is as follows:
Based on our latest meeting, the current status of the Mexico APIS is as follows:
The legal administrative process for modifying current regulations in Mexico has begun. The major changes are:
o A free portal will be developed for private flights. Work groups have been established to begin the process
o A general estimate is that the new free National Institute of Migration’s portal will take approximately 6 months to be completed
o Modifications to the current Guidelines (MX APIS Regulation Guidelines) will be made to adapt to the needs of GA

Separately, we have been alerting the Director General of the National Institute of Migration and his staff that there have been cases where private flights have been charged overtime fees by Migration officers when these fees did not apply. We have also received their commitment that the procedures for the correct application of overtime charges for private flights will be communicated to all Migration offices. We have been asked to report any instances whereby private flights are improperly charged overtime by Immigration so that they can investigate. We ask all Caribbean Sky Tours members to please report any instances where private flights are charged overtime. (Please note that this is totally separate from the normal Immigration taxes charged).

We are very pleased with the outcome of this meeting and we would like to thank the National Institute of Migration authorities, especially Lic. Jose Luis Valles López, Director General of Verification and Control and Lic. Hector Alemán Pacheco, Director of Migration Resolutions for their efforts and support.

Caribbean Sky Tours

We received updated information today on the status of Mexico's APIS

Work continues on the new Free Portal and the development of guidelines more in tune with the limitations and realities of General Aviation. We also continue to address the issue with Immigration charges being incorrectly applied to private flights. We expect to have more details by the end of the week.