- Nationwide travel delays due to passport system outage
- Disruptions occurred at Melbourne and Sydney airports
- It comes hours after Jetstar cancellations left thousands stranded
Hundreds of travellers have endured major delays due to an Australia-wide passport system outage.
Disruptions sparked chaos at Melbourne and Sydney international airports on Sunday as passengers were forced to wait in long queues at the departure terminals.
A Melbourne Airport spokesperson said Australian Border Force has advised it was experiencing a nationwide system issue affecting all 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.’
The ABF later advised that the outage has been resolved.
However, the glitch sparked extended wait times for both inbound and outbound travellers, as airport staff scrambled to process passengers.
Travellers are pictured queuing at Melbourne International Airport on Sunday
The technology failure comes just hours after thousands of travellers were left stranded as Jetstar cancelled 90 flights on Saturday due to an urgent upgrades warning.
Airbus announced on Friday that a potential vulnerability in the software on board the Airbus A320 during solar storms had discovered, which may hinder pilots from steering or stabilising the plane while in the air.
Airbus issued an Alert Operators Transmission (AOT), a global warning urging all airlines that use the A320 passenger jet to immediately update their software and hardware to better protect against radiation interference.
‘Airbus has consequently identified a significant number of A320 Family aircraft currently in-service which may be impacted,’ the statement read.
Jetstar later announced the upgrades on its 34 impacted planes have been completed and that ‘minimal disruptions’ were expected on Sunday.
Flight data at Sydney Airport showed that Jetstar flights were cancelled on Sunday morning.
An additional two flights were also cancelled from Brisbane.
The incident affected 6,000 planes from around the globe, with most of the affected flights on Saturday departing from Australia’s east coast.
Queues at Melbourne Airport are seen on Saturday morning
‘Safety is our number one priority. To respond to a precautionary action from Airbus, we have cancelled some Jetstar Airways flights,’ the airline said.
‘Our teams are working on options to get customers on their way as quickly as possible and are contacting affected customers directly.’
Huge queues were seen forming at major airports on Saturday morning as the flights were axed.
The cancellations did not impact Qantas or Virgin Australia flights.
