Coastwise Transportation; Manning Consultants; 46 U.S.C. § 55103

HQ H010198 April 25, 2007 VES-3-02-OT: RR:BSTC:CCI H010198 GG CATEGORY: Carriers Mr. Edmund White TFMarine, Inc. 1201 Corbin Street Elizabeth, NJ 07201 RE: Coastwise Transportation; Manning Consultants; 46 U.S.C. § 55103 Dear Mr. White: This is in response to your correspondence of April 23, 2007, in which you inquire about the coastwise transportation of two individuals. Under your electronic transmittal, you append an April 23, 2007 letter from “K” Line Ship Management PTE LTD (“K” Line), which has a contract with Haque & Sons LTD (Haque) in Canada as manning consultants to attend to “K” Line-managed vessels in the United States primarily for matters concerning Bangladesh-nationality crew. It is requested that two such Haque manning consultants be allowed to embark on “K” Line’s vessel, M/V MANHATTAN BRIDGE, at Port Elizabeth, New Jersey on April 25, 2007, and to disembark at Charleston, South Carolina on April 29, 2007. Our ruling is set forth below. FACTS A ship management company has a contract with a Canadian company as manning consultants to attend to the ship company’s vessels in the United States for crew-related matters in connection with Bangladesh-nationality crew. Toward that end, two such consultants would embark on one of the ship company’s non-coastwise-qualified vessels in New York, on April 25, 2007, and would disembark at Charleston, South Carolina on April 29, 2007. While aboard the vessel, the consultants would attend to crew-related matters for Bangladesh-nationality crew, namely to investigate the crew’s performance, and also to assist the captain so that no crewmember deserts the vessel. ISSUE Whether the two manning consultants would be “passengers” under the coastwise passenger statute, 46 U.S.C. § 55103, when transported as described. LAW AND ANALYSIS The coastwise passenger statute, 46 U.S.C. § 55103, provides in pertinent part that no foreign vessel may transport passengers between ports or places in the United States either directly or by way of a foreign port, upon a penalty of $300 for every passenger so transported and landed. Under section 55103 (19 CFR 4.80a(a)(5)), a passenger is any person carried aboard a vessel who is not connected with the operation of such vessel, her navigation, ownership, or business (19 CFR 4.50(b)). To this end, as resolved in a June 5, 2002, Customs Bulletin notice (Vol. 36, No. 23, p. 50), persons transported on a vessel would be passengers unless they were “directly and substantially” connected with the operation, navigation, ownership, or business of that vessel itself. In the present case, it is stated that the two consultants would be aboard the vessel to attend to crew-related matters for Bangladesh-nationality crew, to investigate the crew’s performance, and to monitor the crew so no member of the crew deserts the vessel. In this regard, it is clear that the two consultants, engaged as described while in transit aboard the ship, would thereby be so connected with the operation and business of the vessel itself as not to be passengers under those circumstances (compare, e.g., Headquarters ruling (HQ) H005405, of January 17, 2007 (owner’s representative conducting audit and overseeing crew’s and vessel’s overall operation during transit not passenger); and HQ H006223, of February 1, 2007 (two individuals transported from New York/Newark to Charleston, SC, for the purpose of “gangway security and crew management” not passengers)). HOLDING The manning consultants would not be passengers under the coastwise passenger statute, 46 U.S.C. § 55103, when transported for the purposes described in this case. Sincerely, Glen E. Vereb Chief Cargo Security, Carriers and Immigration Branch