US Customs to expand advance air cargo data pilot
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has promised to expand its pilot program of expedited processing for air cargo, to include other air carriers and cargo handlers over the next six months. The pilot program brought in over the winter has so far seen the CBP working with UPS and FedEx on a system in which manifest information on shipments is provided to customs earlier than the current requirements.
Under the current requirements, manifest data must be sent to the CBP four hours in advance of flights landing in the US, but the pilot program sees a subset of the data sent to customs officials further in advance.
This allows customs officials to determine which items require screening or additional processing before flights arrive, or whether they need to be isolated on board the flight, speeding up the customs clearance process on arrival.
Alan Bersin, the Commissioner for the US Customs and Border Patrol said yesterday that the pilot program has been working well, with UPS now able to supply information on shipments 24 hours or even 36 hours in advance.
He said his agency was aiming to extend the pilot program to DHL soon, followed by TNT “in the not too distant future”.
Bersin said: “It is an extraordinary collaboration with the private sector and will be extended over the next six months to commercial airlines and the large cargo operators.”
The Customs Commissioner was giving evidence to the US Congress yesterday, explaining his agency’s request for funding for the 2012 budget year to the House Appropriations Committee.
The CBP is seeking 33 additional staff to work at its National Targeting Center for Cargo in Herndon, Virginia, to improve screening efforts for cargo in the wake of last October’s discovery of explosive devices on aircraft flying to the United States.
Congressman David Price, the Ranking Member of the Committee, expressed surprise yesterday that the CBP had apparently dropped a request it made to Congress last November for an extra $80m to devote towards improving cargo screening systems.
The CBP Commissioner explained that since the previous request for funding was made, the Secretary for Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, had demanded that protocols for air cargo screening be completed without major funding increases.
Bersin said: “We are not bashful about asking for resources, but taking the changes into account, the Secretary determined that we need to perfect these protocols and we need to do that within our existing resource base, together with the additional resources we asked for for the National Targeting Centre.”
