Passengers take the people mover at Toronto Pearson International Airport’s Terminal 1, on May 25, 2022. The airport had said an Aug. 20 technical outage was affecting Primary Inspection Kiosks in Terminals 1 and 3. Canada's border agency now says the issue has been resolved.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
A partial system outage that affected a number of airports across Canada for more than three hours has been resolved, the federal border agency says, though it has yet to confirm the cause of the incident.
The Canada Border Services Agency announced the technical issue on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after 12 p.m. ET Tuesday, saying the outage was affecting customs processing at multiple airports. International airports across the country, including in Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver and Montreal, reported being affected.
Just before 4 p.m. ET, the CBSA posted an update to its social media saying the outage had been resolved and that service had been restored.
In an e-mail, the CBSA said that, while it investigates the cause of the now-resolved outage, it could confirm that it was not the result of any cyberattack.
During the afternoon, multiple airports said the outage shut down kiosks used by travellers to fill out customs information upon arrival. In its e-mail, the CBSA said travellers were being processed manually and additional resources were being made available to minimize wait times.
At Toronto Pearson International Airport, kiosks at terminals 1 and 3 were affected. Just before 4 p.m. ET, the airport made a follow-up post on X, saying the kiosks were back up and running.
Earlier, Halifax Stanfield International Airport also posted a statement on X warning passengers of possible delays at customs.
“Please be aware you may experience delays in customs processing at our airport during this time. We will share updates as available,” the airport said in its post.
Shortly after 3 p.m. ET, within an hour of the outage, the airport said the issue had been resolved.
Vancouver International Airport also said it was affected by the outage. In a post on X, the airport said inbound international passengers could experience longer-than-normal customs clearance times.
“Our teams are providing information to affected travellers in our Customs Hall,” the airport said.
Even with service restored, the airport said on X that wait times could still be longer than normal as CBSA processed travellers and cleared lines.
A spokesperson from Montréal-Trudeau International Airport said customs processing was slower than usual but that there had been no major impact to the airport.
“CBSA technicians are currently assessing, and a contingency plan has been deployed, enabling passengers to be processed, but obviously with a longer-than-usual delay,” Nadia Benelfellah had said prior to service resuming.