Travellers faced extensive delays at certain Canadian airports as a national system failure of the Canada Border Services Agency’s online passport verification, including inspection kiosks, caused lengthy wait times for customs processing.
The CBSA indicated on Monday that the issue had been resolved, but delays could persist in the short term as the agency strives to return to normal operations following the unforeseen technical problem during routine maintenance.
The outage also affected check-ins for flights bound for Canada, leading airline staff to manually contact Canadian authorities to verify passports for both domestic and foreign travellers. Declarations on the ArriveCAN app were also impacted by the outage.
Airports such as Trudeau International Airport in Montreal, Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, and Calgary International Airport alerted passengers via social media about potential delays at customs. Vancouver International Airport reported kiosk disruptions but assured minimal operational impacts apart from slightly extended clearance times.
Travellers were rerouted to manual processing at primary inspection lines due to the malfunction. Despite efforts to expedite the process, frustration mounted among passengers and airline staff striving to meet travel obligations and connections affected by the delays.
Acts of kindness emerged amidst the chaos as people on flights and at airports extended support by sharing information and providing additional refreshments. The outage had broader implications, impacting identity verification for passengers travelling to or through Canada and leading to flight disruptions.
This incident is not the first time a nationwide kiosk failure has disrupted travel in Canada, with previous incidents in April and June causing similar delays across major airports in the country.
