U.S. Customs System Outage Sparks Major Delays At Multiple Airports
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection experienced an outage of its online passenger processing system on Friday, causing delays at airports across the country.
CBP described the outage as a “technology disruption” that affected processing systems at “various air ports of entry.”
CBP is experiencing a temporary outage with its processing systems at various air ports of entry & is taking immediate action to address the technology disruption. CBP officers continue to process international travelers using alternative procedures until systems are back online.
— CBP (@CBP) August 16, 2019
The outage was clogging up customs lines for travelers at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia and Los Angeles International Airport.
Two international airports in Hawaii, one in Kona and the other in Honolulu, were also affected by the outage.
Customs officers at some airports had to process passengers manually. CBP said it was working to process international travelers quickly “while maintaining the highest levels of security.”
An hour after CBP reported the outages, LAX announced that CBP’s systems were “slowly getting back to normal.”
CBP later confirmed on Twitter that the impacted systems were “coming back online” and said the outage didn’t appear to be “malicious.”
“There is no indication the disruption was malicious in nature at this time,” the law enforcement agency said.
My mother in law is stuck @Dulles_Airport trying to get through customs. She just told me they announced the system was slowly coming back online. @ABC7News pic.twitter.com/SaPwxWpwNX
— Alex Liggitt (@ABC7Alex) August 16, 2019
#HeadsUp
US Customs at JFK Airport in NYC is down. Long lines are forming. pic.twitter.com/ycNfO7aFcp— shon gables cbs46 (@shongables) August 16, 2019
@CBPSoutheast @Dulles_Airport Hundreds of passengers stranded in customs at IAD due to “computer problems”. Nothing is moving. Very frustrating. pic.twitter.com/MBVo9da7no
— Mike Donkle (@meatfrockgirl) August 16, 2019
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
