Census Bureau Reports That AESDirect Export Filing System Back On-line
As previously advised, the AESDirect http://www.aesdirect.gov/ electronic export information filing system was down yesterday due to a power outage resulting from severe weather conditions in the DC area. AESDirect service was restored last night.
The Census Bureau's advisory issued this morning is reprinted below. As indicated in the advisory further information on the AES Downtime policy can be found on the blog of the Census Bureau's Foreign Trade Division Census.
AES Broadcast 08/13/2010 Broadcast # 2010043
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AESDirect Program Back On-line
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This message is intended for AESDirect program users only.
The power has been restored to the primary datacenter for the AESDirect program and AESDirect is back on-line.
All AESDirect program transactions for shipments that moved under the AES Downtime Policy must now be filed along with any new AES transactions.
For further information or questions, contact the U.S. Census Bureau's AES Branch.
Telephone: (800) 549-0595, select option 1 for AES Email: askaes@census.gov
Online: www.census.gov/trade.
Blog: blogs.census.gov/globalreach/2010/07/a-look-into-the-aes-downtime-policy.html
Labels: AES
|posted by Douglas N. Jacobson| Permalink 
On Thursday, AES was down. Their Downtime Policy allowed cargo to be tendered to carriers (except for ITAR goods which must wait until systems are restored).
On Friday, AES was working again. The Downtime Policy ceased. ITNs from AES results once again required prior to export (except for the lucky Option 4 filers).
Except that AES was so backlogged that turnaround times - and hence the issuance of an ITN - was taking many hours instead of a few minutes. With cut-off times at airlines and the piers approaching, many flights had to be rebooked, many ocean shipments rolled to the next vessel, and many exporters unhappy.
So the irony is that, on Thursday, when the systems was down, there was no interruption to commerce. But on Friday, when the system was up again, there was an serious interruption.
A call to Census confirmed that they would not extend the Downtime Policy just to get caught up again.
Jim Dickeson
Import Export Geeks
Computer Based Import Export Compliance Training
Posted by
Jim |
11:47 PM