ACEA follow up to our earlier blog regarding the downtime experienced on ACE on November 14,  CBP has released the following formal statement.  In it, they discuss the outage, their evaluation of the current downtime procedures, and what steps they are taking to further enhance their procedures.  CBP is also working closely with Commercial Operations Advisory Council (COAC) to identify areas of concern, and NCBFAA is seeking feedback from it’s members to assist.

CBP Statement Regarding ACE System Status

November 15, 2017

The ACE system resumed cargo processing at approximately 10:00 p.m. EST last night and continues to process normally.  All transactions backlogged in the queue were processed as of approximately 1:00 a.m. EST.  Our technicians, in collaboration with IBM technicians, are working around the clock to identify the root cause of the disruption to the ACE database.  We do know that this issue and the Aug. 2 outage issue are unrelated.

CBP executive leadership continues to communicate with our ports receiving initial reports that downtime procedures worked as expected. The Office of Field Operations is using this event to perform an evaluation of these procedures by polling the ports to identify issues or deficiencies, as well as best practices, in order to enhance our downtime procedures.  In addition, CBP client representatives are continuing to assess impacts to trade.  Further, CBP will continue engaging the COAC Outage working group and other trade partners to identify areas of concern surrounding operations and our response to the event.