International travellers are facing major delays at Australian airports due to a nationwide passport system outage.
A Melbourne Airport spokesperson told the ABC the Australian Border Force (ABF) advised it was experiencing a nationwide system issue affecting all inbound and outbound passengers.
“[The] ABF is processing passengers manually,” the spokesperson said.
“We are currently prioritising flights to manage passenger flows.
“We appreciate passengers’ patience as ABF works to resolve this issue.”
There is a long queue of passengers waiting to be processed through the Sydney departures area. (ABC News: Nick Dole)
Melbourne Airport media has now reported that the ABF advises the issue has been resolved.
However, Sydney Airport is still experiencing a long line of passengers in the departures area who are waiting to have their passports processed.
Staff have told passengers the Border Force IT issue has been resolved, but a backlog still exists.
In November last year, a similar technical outage affected SmartGate kiosks across the country that lasted two hours.
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