Well after 4 trips to Mexico since the first of the year, still no Mexican version of eApis, just the usual trying to track down all 5 people to stamp my flight plan closure or new flight plan. One new thing, FSS can no longer advise customs of a revised arrival time. They took their text computers away this month. So if you have to revise your eApis time back into the USA, you better have internet access in the air. Today's flight was fun, my flight plan never crossed the border, so I had to re-file 5 minutes south of the border or not cross. For once I was moaning the fact I had a tailwind, since I actually got off early, it was going to blow me over the border out of the 1 hour window of opportunity to cross. Thats when I found out that FSS can no longer contact customs to revise your arrival time.

dogpilot wrote:Well after 4 trips to Mexico since the first of the year, still no Mexican version of eApis, just the usual trying to track down all 5 people to stamp my flight plan closure or new flight plan. One new thing, FSS can no longer advise customs of a revised arrival time. They took their text computers away this month. So if you have to revise your eApis time back into the USA, you better have internet access in the air. Today's flight was fun, my flight plan never crossed the border, so I had to re-file 5 minutes south of the border or not cross. For once I was moaning the fact I had a tailwind, since I actually got off early, it was going to blow me over the border out of the 1 hour window of opportunity to cross. Thats when I found out that FSS can no longer contact customs to revise your arrival time.

Thanks for resurrecting this thread. Two trips on my side also. No one has said a thing about the new mexican eapis to us either.

Good tip on FSS. I didn't know that, though I found them to be unreliable even before the switch.

The pilot population is declining and yet the business of flying continues to get more complicated and expensive. That seems like the wrong direction unless the intent is to ultimately kill GA. It just makes me sad that it has changed the way it has. I read a note about the FAA today that broke their budget down as a cost per pilot. In 1980, the FAA's budget was $3.2 B, or about $3,900/pilot. Today their budget is $15.9 B or $26,000/pilot. That is a radical change in the economics and the focus. I'm sure the same could be said for Mexico, and our other bordering countries. The Bahamas seem to be one of the few places that is trying to make it easier for pilots, but their economy is heavily tourist based. As the pilot population shrinks, their financial contribution to any economy shrinks as well, so making things simpler for those of us remaining will be less important. Look for more complications and expense to come.

Update:

We will be headed back to Mexico City tomorrow for our third face-to-face meeting with the Director General of Mexican Immigration and his staff since the beginning of the year. We are grateful and fortunate that the Director General has invited us to these exclusive meetings. We are also fortunate to have the support of AOPA as well. Since our first meeting, our observations and recommendations to the Mexican government have been clear; 1) Not having a free portal is detrimental to the flow of General Aviation and the government should consider implementing a free portal for APIS Manifest filings like the USA and CARICOM countries, 2) the requirements on timelines and frequency for presenting APIS Manifests are incompatible with the capabilities of General Aviation.

We have submitted to the Director General a detailed list of proposals in writing complete with analysis and examples for changes to the current guidelines. In addition, we have also found an existing option for a free portal that could be used. During our teleconference yesterday, it appears that these proposals have been well received so we are hopeful that meaningful progress can be made tomorrow.

The current situation faced by General Aviation pilots and ourselves is very awkward. There is a published Mexican law for APIS requirements that does not appear to be currently enforced. At the same time, there is also a precedent that when Mexican regulations are finally enforced, they can be enforced retroactively (see Mexican airspace fees). Over the years, we have been successful in getting enforcement of certain regulations postponed in writing (see Mexico 406 MHz ELT requirements). We have also been successful in getting regulations clarified (see Mexican Liability Insurance clarification). Unfortunately, at this point we had no option but to sign up with ARINC to give pilots an affordable option to comply with the law as it is currently written while we continue to try and get the regulations modified.

Our position is that as long as there is a published law in place that could affect General Aviation pilots, we must tell our members about it. If we can prove to the appropriate government that enforcement is not required, we obtain a published document to that effect from the government in writing. If ambiguity in a published law causes pilots to purchase services that are not required, we get published clarification from the government in writing. However, we cannot, in good faith, tell our members to simply disregard a published law that is not presently being enforced and “not worry about it”. We have learned over the years that this type of strategy can come back to haunt you in the long term. Therefore, in the meantime we will continue spending our time (and money) in working with the appropriate governments to properly address issues that impede the international travel of General Aviation. We hope to report progress on the Mexico APIS issue soon.

Best regards

Caribbean Sky Tours

Another update. Mostly good news:

Prelude:

Since the implementation of the Mexico APIS on December 31, 2013, we have been looking for solutions to provide a reasonable option 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 example in our proposal could be addressed to find a viable solution. 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:

During our meeting last Friday, we were advised that the legal administrative process for modifying current regulations in Mexico has begun. The major changes will be:

• A free portal will be developed for private flights. Work groups have been established within the Institute to begin the process
• A general estimate is that the new free National Institute of Migration’s portal will take approximately 6 months to complete and implement
• Modifications to the current Guidelines (MX APIS Regulation Guidelines) regarding frequency and timing of manifest submissions will be made to adapt to the needs of GA

Separately, we have been alerting the Director General of 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 a commitment that the procedures for the correct application of overtime charges for private flights will be communicated to all immigration 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

Well that sounds encouraging. My flight down on Sunday was pleasant, only one official missing in the receiving line, immigration. He eventually rocked up and stamped everything. I only had one issue leaving, the controller wanted me to stay at 2200' for 10 miles. One must question controllers from time to time. Like, do you mind if I climb up to 5000' so I don't hit the mountain. She actually wanted to argue! I just did it, I was VFR after all.

I did get the angry ICE agent this time at Nogales. He had a hard on for our assay samples, which carry no duty and no commercial value. What he was really bitching about, it was 3:30 pm and he wanted to go home and was terrified he may have to do a SID document (standard import doc), that and dig around to find the stamp. We where sternly warned to not do that again, do what? He is defiantly not representative of the other agents, who are knowledgeable and helpful and actually know their job. There always has to be one, he couldn't even get the Geiger counter to work.

On the fun side, I had a Bald Eagle hanging around the camp all day, fishing and hopping about on the sand bar. Of course, since it was a quick in and out trip, I didn't even bring a camera.

dogpilot wrote:I only had one issue leaving, the controller wanted me to stay at 2200' for 10 miles. One must question controllers from time to time. Like, do you mind if I climb up to 5000' so I don't hit the mountain. She actually wanted to argue! I just did it, I was VFR after all.

uh, oops!

We had kind of the reverse of that a while ago. Tower controller was good, but the technology was weird.

We were doing a photo mission over Guanajuato and the controller advised that there would be a mountain between us and her, so just to report back when we climbed back up and were ready to continue to the airport. Oddly, we could hear her just fine the entire time we were shooting, though she couldn't hear us at all. It was almost like they had setup the transmitter on the top of the mountain, but left the receiver on the tower (blocked by the mountain). Still haven't quite figured that one out.