Passengers travelling through international airports across the country face lengthy delays as a nationwide outage hits immigration systems.
The Australian Border Force on Friday morning confirmed a technical outage was impacting SmartGate kiosks for inbound and outbound passengers at international airports.
Passengers are being manually processed, a spokesperson said, and additional officers have been sent to ensure "as minimal disruption as possible".
"The issue is currently being rectified and systems are slowly returning online," the spokesperson said.
"We appreciate traveller's patience as we continue to work through the issue."
The Australian Border Force is aware of a technical outage impacting SmartGate kiosks for outbound and inbound passengers at international airports nationwide today (Friday 8 November 2024).— ABF (@AusBorderForce) Additional ABF officers are being surged into work areas to manually process passengers… pic.twitter.com/AxtxgcyittNovember 8, 2024
A Melbourne Airport spokesperson told AAP passengers face "lengthy delays".
The immigration outage has impacted international travellers departing from Sydney Airport with a spokesperson saying no flights had yet been impacted, but inbound and outbound queues were longer than usual.
"We apologise for the disruption and appreciate everyone's patience as the issue is being resolved," they said.
People going into and out of the airport are encouraged to check with their airline on the status of their flight, and leave plenty of time when travelling.