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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Van Nuys Airport Impacted by Lack of Customs Agents

Van Nuys Airport officials and U.S. Customs and Border Protection are in ongoing discussions to return an officer to the airport to clear passengers and baggage on private overseas flights. An on-demand official had been available for charter aviation firms at both Van Nuys and Bob Hope Airport in Burbank until August 2006 when the agency decided to use those agents elsewhere. The charter companies are happy to return to the pre-August arrangement when officers showed up at their facilities when needed. The CBP, however, has presented the option of Van Nuys and Bob Hope attaining user-fee airport status in which a dedicated officer is available in exchange for a fee and facilities to conduct their operations. Until the issue is resolved, the charter firms must clear international flights at Los Angeles International Airport or another airfield, which adds time and expense for the passengers and strikes at their bottom line. “It’s cost us money, it’s cost us landings, it’s cost us convenience for the passengers,” said Marc Foulkrod, chairman and CEO of AvJet Corp., a charter service based at Bob Hope Airport. “It’s very difficult.” The Air Group Chairman and CEO Jon Winthrop recognizes that CBP only has so much manpower and needs to do what it can with what is available yet also readily admits that an officer at Van Nuys saves on extra landings and brings a convenience that passengers expect. The charter and aircraft management firm’s international business has increased over the years, even when the availability of an agent was spotty at best. “The lack of having one today has not impacted our operation,” Winthrop said. Under current rules, flights originating from the north, east or west of Van Nuys can be cleared by customs at the airport. Flights from the south or the Caribbean are required to stop at the first port of entry – San Diego, Yuma, or Florida – on its flight path unless they have a border overflight permit. As talks are still taking place between the airport and CBP, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, the cost of bringing an officer back to Van Nuys is unknown. Airport Director Selena Birk, who has taken a lead in the talks, cannot satisfy the requirement of the facility space. “Some general aviation airports with large undeveloped areas might be able to do that but this is a mature airport and I don’t have a lot of available space,” Birk said. The CBP would need space to have access to its security systems and areas to conduct questioning and biometric checks of foreign visitors, said Kevin McAleenan, the area port director for the CBP. Airports in San Bernardino, Palm Springs and Bakersfield have all attained user-fee airport status. “It seems like the right solution with the several dozen flights a month at Burbank and Van Nuys,” McAleenan said. The lack of officers at airports handling general aviation flights is not an across the board policy. At airports in Scottsdale, Arizona and Teterboro, New Jersey the equivalent of Van Nuys on the East Coast separate facilities are available for CBP clearance, said Dan Burkhart, director of regional programs in California for the National Business Aviation Association and another player in the talks with CBP officials here. It’s not unusual to see this across the country as each port district has jurisdiction to make its own local decisions, Burkhart said. In meeting with CBP officials, Birk said she has brought up the potential loss of business to the charter companies. She has also raised the issue of efficiency as Van Nuys is supposed to relieve LAX of general aviation traffic. Airspace above LAX is already congested and its ground capacity is limited. With small, private jets crossing the runways and taxiways in order to meet with a CBP officer, efficiency drops. Of the three airports in the region handling general aviation traffic – Van Nuys, Bob Hope and Long Beach – Van Nuys was by far the highest user of the customs officers, said Chris Kunze, a staff advisor at Long Beach Airport. “If you put the three of us together, it relieves a significant burden on LAX,” Kunze said. Robert Rodine, co-chairman of Valley Industry & Commerce Association’s aviation committee and consultant to the aviation industry, says the lack of a customs agent is making Van Nuys less accessible to business aviation. “When Van Nuys is less accessible to business aviation then Los Angeles is less accessible to business,” Rodine said. Even though the charter operators recognize the importance of having clearance agents available at their facilities, there are limits to what they may want to contribute. While Winthrop, of the Air Group, admitted to a willingness to pay what is necessary, AvJet’s Foulkrad sees that at as a trap into the bottomless pit that is the government bureaucracy. “Will we make space available for a customs agent? Sure. Will we pay for a salary?” Foulkrod asked. “That’s a never-ending spiral if you say you will pay any cost.”

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