Rentals and TSA rules

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Desert Eagle

Filing Flight Plan
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Sep 13, 2021
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Desert Eagle
Encountered a local FBO that requires passport or Birth cert just for rentals. They won’t accept EDL. They claimed that they were warned in the last TSA audit to maintain this documentation for ALL rental customers even those who were not students. They claimed that the TSA auditors threatened with a $20k fine. Anyone else encounter this? According to the June 2021 TSA GA security guidelines addressing “rentals” this is not a requirement, TSA also responded in an email that they do not regulate rentals, except when training is involved.
 
I’d be worried about the FBO if they can’t understand what are pretty simple regulations. Maybe their systems are so messed up that they can’t tell the difference between a renter and a student? If that’s true, how will the ever be able to safeguard that information?
 
As a freelance CFI I get audited by the TSA every year. The inspector's knowledge of the actual rules that they have been put in charge to enforce is terrible.
 
My experience with the TSA Napoleons that deal with anything GA related is that they like to flaunt how much their maximum fines are for any perceived misdoing. I once accidentally mis keyed my wife's birthdate on a eAPIS departure notification (it was her birthday, put current year instead of birth year). After noticing the error after submission, I submitted a second one (there is no way to amend a submitted notice) and went on with my business with no issues from CBP. About two weeks later I get a call from some douche telling me how he's going to do me a favor by giving me a warning rather than fining me $5,000 for submitting false information. "Um, okay...thanks." Some mall is apparently missing their cop.
 
I love (hate) it when entities make up crap to serve their own power-trip purposes....oh, wait, sounds like the history of the world.
Of course, a private FBO can impose any criteria they wish for rental qualifications, not much you can do, no matter what.
 
You can not rent there...there aren't many airplane rental businesses who can afford to lose renters.
 
Desert Eagle said:
Encountered a local FBO that requires passport or Birth cert just for rentals. They won’t accept EDL.
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Not that it makes a difference but in Carolina we have "Real ID" (I guess it's their version of EDL) that requires a birth certificate and social security card (and other foolishness) to obtain. Seems to me that not accepting these would be criminal in itself after making us walk through the fire to get them ...

"It's their world ... I'm just trying to live in it!" Yes you can quote me on that.
 
Brad Z said:
My experience with the TSA Napoleons that deal with anything GA related is that they like to flaunt how much their maximum fines are for any perceived misdoing. I once accidentally mis keyed my wife's birthdate on a eAPIS departure notification (it was her birthday, put current year instead of birth year). After noticing the error after submission, I submitted a second one (there is no way to amend a submitted notice) and went on with my business with no issues from CBP. About two weeks later I get a call from some douche telling me how he's going to do me a favor by giving me a warning rather than fining me $5,000 for submitting false information. "Um, okay...thanks." Some mall is apparently missing their cop.
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Thats just called Tuesday when dealing with Team DHS. Welcome to the club. Heck the Taliban did a more courteous job in freedom of passage to US citizens during the fall of Kabul than the cbp does on the regular. LOL
 
dmspilot said:
As a freelance CFI I get audited by the TSA every year. The inspector's knowledge of the actual rules that they have been put in charge to enforce is terrible.
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Do you have a history training foreign nationals?
 
I know organizations which do both rentals and training which require it from all. The reason I hear is not some claim that TSA or FAA is insisting on it, but something more pragmatic. It's administratively easier to treat flight customers the same. Kind of like doing 100 hour inspections. Take the airplane off-line even if the next flight is just a rental.
 
I’ve checked with 3 FBOs in the local area and all have held that it’s at the insistence of the TSA auditors. I’ve reached out to 2 FBOs outside of the area that fall under TSA offices in other cities, the both said that The auditors don’t even check renters records.
 
Has anyone contacted the TSA and asked for a reference to the requirements?
 
hindsight2020 said:
Thats just called Tuesday when dealing with Team DHS. Welcome to the club. Heck the Taliban did a more courteous job in freedom of passage to US citizens during the fall of Kabul than the cbp does on the regular. LOL
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Two weeks ago, I went through immigration in KORD so quickly I thought I was in a time warp or something- arrived from EGLL. Global pass, machine took my picture, printed a receipt, and that was it! No line, and I don't think I was at the machine for more than 30 seconds.

Granted, it was once easier for everyone!
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Two weeks ago, I went through immigration in KORD so quickly I thought I was in a time warp or something- arrived from EGLL. Global pass, machine took my picture, printed a receipt, and that was it! No line, and I don't think I was at the machine for more than 30 seconds.

Granted, it was once easier for everyone!
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A few months ago I can through the same route from the UK. Stood in line half an hour, CBP guy checked my face against the passport and actually asked why I had been in London. I barely resisted the impulse to tell him it was none of his business… it was a bit of a shock because no one’s asked me that in decades. In fact the whole entry into the UK was automated. Machine scanned the passport, facial recognition, nobody even there to see as I walked through the “nothing to declare” doors. The whole thing has just gotten weird.
 
DaleB said:
A few months ago I can through the same route from the UK. Stood in line half an hour, CBP guy checked my face against the passport and actually asked why I had been in London. I barely resisted the impulse to tell him it was none of his business… it was a bit of a shock because no one’s asked me that in decades. In fact the whole entry into the UK was automated. Machine scanned the passport, facial recognition, nobody even there to see as I walked through the “nothing to declare” doors. The whole thing has just gotten weird.
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Yeah, the UK entry was just as you said, it took longer than it should because everyone had some trouble getting lined up with the camera. The UK stopped the incoming Covid tests a couple of days after I arrived, but the "locator form" they used was almost like the one I filled our before entering China in 2019! Deja vue!
 
At the school where I rent I was told the checkout constituted instruction . . .

But the club I mentioned elsewhere with the SR22 wanted the same prior to meeting me in person.
 
DaleB said:
A few months ago I can through the same route from the UK. Stood in line half an hour, CBP guy checked my face against the passport and actually asked why I had been in London. I barely resisted the impulse to tell him it was none of his business… it was a bit of a shock because no one’s asked me that in decades. In fact the whole entry into the UK was automated. Machine scanned the passport, facial recognition, nobody even there to see as I walked through the “nothing to declare” doors. The whole thing has just gotten weird.
Click to expand...

"I dunno, it was a feeling I couldn't explain, like I was being drawn there. I guess you could say it was a London Calling."
 
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