The U.S.-based Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) and the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) have weighed in on the Interactive Advance Passenger Information (IAPI) initiative of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

Planes Must Transmit Passenger Information Before the Leave the Ground

IAPI, which is scheduled for rollout in 2015, will require all planes flying from the U.S. to transmit passenger information to the CBSA electronically before they leave the ground. The CBSA will then determine whether the passengers are eligible to enter Canada and respond with boarding permission or a “do not board” directive accordingly.

IAPI goes beyond the existing Advance Passenger Information / Passenger Name Record (API/PNR) program, which doesn’t require that passenger information be sent before departure, and doesn’t apply to general aviation flights. The Canadian initiative will mirror the American Electronic Advance Passenger Information System (eAPIS), and is in fact being developed under the joint Beyond the Border Action Plan to which the two countries committed themselves in 2011.

AOPA and COPA want to make sure that the similarity between IAPI and eAPIS doesn’t result in any unnecessary duplication of effort, either for travelers or the CBSA itself. To that end, the general aviation advocacy groups recently sent a joint letter to the CBSA asking that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) be invited to join them in the IAPI General Aviation Working Group.

The letter pointed out that eAPIS already collects all of the information IAPI will ask for, with a noncompliance rate of only a tenth of a percent. AOPA vice president Craig Spence sees the situation as an opportunity for the government agencies to cooperate to “eliminate duplicate procedures, standardize the arrival experience” and “create an environment that simplifies cross-border travel”.

Recommendation made after Conference of Industry Groups

AOPA and COPA made the recommendation to include the CBP after participating in a conference of industry groups, aircraft manufacturers and experts at the EAA AirVenture convention in Wisconsin. Conference attendees reached a consensus that general aviation pilots should not be burdened with duplicative reporting requirements, and also agreed that individualized threat assessment based on potential risk would be preferable to the uniform approach now used by the CBP.

For example, while the CBP requires advance passenger information from all general aviation flights entering or leaving the U.S., there is no such requirement for other personal vehicles like cars and boats. AOPA’s Spence said that by matching the examination of each vehicle to the risk associated with it and its occupants, it should be possible to achieve an inspection regime that makes things easier for travelers while still keeping the border as secure as possible.