HQ 112385: Addendum to Headquarters Ruling Letter 112208

Native CBP ruling rendition. Applicability is fact-specific; modification/revocation relationships and original publisher date are retained. Publisher sentinel year0001 means unknown date, not a historical legal adoption.

                            HQ 112385

                          July 22, 1992

VES-3-02 CO:R:IT:C 112385 GFM

CATEGORY:  Carriers

R. Taylor
Operations Department
Rice, Unruh, Reynolds Co.
115 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA  19106

RE:  Addendum to Headquarters Ruling Letter 112208

Dear Mr. Taylor:

     This is in reference to your letter dated July 14, 1992,
requesting comment on an issue pursuant to the above referenced
ruling.

     In your letter, you inquire as to whether the carriage of
several dozen non-fare paying travel agents and reviewers from
New York to either Baltimore, Charleston, or Miami aboard the
non-coastwise-qualified vessel under consideration would
constitute a violation of the coastwise laws.

     The passenger coastwise law, 46 U.S.C. App. 289, provides
that:

          No foreign vessel shall transport passengers
          between ports or places in the United States,
          either directly or by way of a foreign port,
          under a penalty of $200 for each passenger so
          transported and landed.

     The Customs Service has consistently interpreted this
proscription to apply to any vessel except a United States-built,
owned, and properly documented vessel (see 46 U.S.C. 12106 and
12110, 46 U.S.C. App. 883, and 19 CFR 4.80(a)).  Pursuant to
section 4.50(b) of the Customs Regulations (19 CFR 4.50(b)), the
word "passenger," for purposes of this provision, is defined as
"...any person carried on a vessel who is not connected with the
operation of such vessel, her navigation, ownership, or
business."  The connection must be direct and immediate, not a
remote or hypothetical connection or a connection related only to
future voyages.
     The Customs Service has long-held that while travel agents
may be tangentially connected with the business of a vessel in
that they may better sell and promote future travel on that
vessel, they are not directly enough connected with the business
of the vessel to be classified as other than passengers as
defined in 19 CFR 4.50(b), whether or not they are charged a
fare (ruling letters dated April 3, 1958 [MA 216.131] and August
29, 1960 [MA 217.1]).  The connection of such persons to the
vessel is questionably closer than their connection to vessels of
other lines which offer cruises to the public.  It should be
noted, however, that travel agents who are employed by the
corporation that owns the vessel and whose duties require an on-
board presence (e.g., to assist a specific group of passengers)
would possess a sufficiently direct and immediate nexus to the
vessel's business so as not to be considered passengers for
purposes of section 289.

     Consequently, the proposed carriage of  travel agents and
reviewers aboard the non-coastwise-qualified vessel described in
your proposal would constitute a violation of section 289.

                                        Sincerely,




                                        B. James Fritz
                                        Chief
                                        Carrier Rulings Branch