SmartGate technology designed to hasten the journey through airports crashed in Australia Monday morning, delaying thousands of passengers and prompting traveler anger.
The nationwide outage affected inbound and outbound passengers and hit during the early-morning international arrivals peak.
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Irate travelers posted pictures of huge queues in arrivals areas and were warned it could take up to two hours to get through.
The Australian Border Force called in additional staff to help deal with the SmartGate problem.
One passenger described the situation at Melbourne Airport as chaos.
“No apology for over an hour and a half and no staff to assist the hundreds of passengers who were all jammed in non-existent queues,” Michele Williams tweeted.
Another passenger described Sydney Airport as “a total shambles”.
“Good luck anyone trying to get to work!” he said. “Makes LAX look efficient.”
The Australian Border Force said it was working resolve an IT systems outage “affecting inbound and outbound passenger processing at international airports”.
“Additional staff have been deployed to help minimize delays,” it said.
By 9:30 am, Melbourne Airport was advising passengers to arrive as normal for scheduled services and speak to their airlines for updates.
Shortly before noon, the airport tweeted that the SmartGates were operational again.
A Border Force spokesperson confirmed early in the afternoon that a number of ABF and Department of Home Affairs IT systems hit by the outage had been restored.
“The Department is continuing work to bring all systems back online, ensure the integrity of the systems and resolve any ongoing issues,” the spokesperson said.
“Additional ABF staff have been deployed to process passengers at international airports and to minimize delays in cargo processing where possible.
“While the addition of staff has seen reduced delays at some airports, passengers are still encouraged to arrive at airports early to allow additional time for processing.
“Cargo processing is continuing, though some delays can be expected as staff work through the backlog.
“We appreciate the patience of passengers and businesses impacted by these outages.”
