AvFinity AIRS Adds Air Wisconsin To List of APIS Customers

Air Wisconsin, the largest privately held regional airline in the U.S., has joined the growing ranks of carriers that have implemented AIRS™ to manage Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) filings for international flights.

AvFinity is an authorized U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) pre-departure message provider. We designed AIRS so that it provides airlines with connectivity to CBP, CARICOM and soon to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to facilitate APIS filings.

AIRS has become wildly popular for APIS because it has a bunch of neat features that allow airlines to check their data before filing (thus, avoiding potential fines). Airlines also can monitor their message flow in real-time via the AIRS built-in browser or receive alerts on successful APIS submissions via SMS and email.

We’re proud to say that more than one-third of North America’s regional air carriers now are using AIRS for APIS, flight plan filing, NOTAMs and Collaborative Decision Making (CDMs). That’s phenomenal growth for this powerful data communications/integration appliance in just its first year of introduction.

AvFinity’s AIRS APIS Solution Helps a Regional Airline Avoid Costly Fines

Recently a regional airline was faced with numerous USCBP (United States Customs and Border Protection) fines because of their legacy email method for filing APIS manifests. The airline’s email filing method did not have sufficient checks and balances on the manifests, which caused around three million dollars in USCBP fines to accumulate against the airline.

Fortunately the airline was aware of the issues with the current APIS manifest submission method and had been in contact with AvFinity about our AIRS APIS Navigator solution before the meeting with USCBP. USCBP agents, being aware of the AvFinity APIS solution, waived the fines as long as the regional airline pursued a satisfactory solution soon. AIRS will be installed in the regional’s datacenter and will retrieve manifests from their application servers. AIRS routes those manifests to AvFinity based on the routing configured. Once the manifest lands at the AvFinity Datacenter some basic data verification is performed using AvFinity’s APIS Navigator software. APIS Navigator scans for required USCPB data like:

• Missing or Invalid travel document
• Missing or Invalid DOB
• Missing or Invalid Departure or Arrival time
• Fields too long
• Invalid characters in fields
• Required data field is missing
• Incorrectly formatted UN/EDIFACT message
• Etc.

If APIS Navigator finds errors with the manifest, it is rejected before reaching the USCBP production queue and an alert is sent to the regional airline. This saves the airline from having to pay USCBP fines. If the manifest passes the basic data checks it is forwarded to USCBP via a secure channel.

The regional airline is also able to login to the AvFinity Registered User site and monitor their APIS traffic. Both sent and failed messages are available for review.

If your airline or aviation company has communications items on its wish list, we encourage you to consider AIRS. It not only provides more messaging features for today’s needs than you ever envisioned, it also is easily adapted to future or unanticipated issues.

For more information, we encourage you to visit our website on the AvFinity Integrated Router Solution or to sign up for a Webinar to discuss your airline’s needs and how AvFinity can provide the answer.