Customs systems are back up and running at YVR airport, after being offline across Canada for most of the day.
But while travellers are now being processed through the Primary Inspection Kiosks (PIK), said Jenny Duncan, the airport's spokesperson, there is still congestion at the airport as everyone gets moving again.
Hundreds of travellers arriving at YVR were delayed due to the outage.
Both the PIK kiosks, run by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and NEXUS systems were down across Canada, according to the airport.
"We were first made aware of the outage at 7 a.m. this morning," said Duncan, adding that YVR doesn't have an estimate of when the Primary Inspection Kiosks will be back up and running, but CBSA is working on fixing those systems.
The airport said that additional staff are helping arriving guests fill out manual forms and stay hydrated.
One traveller reported over Twitter that he had been waiting in line for over four and a half hours, while another called the lineups “chaos,” with hundreds of people stuck waiting.
Toronto Pearson Airport and Calgary International Airport also reported delays due to the computer-system failure, affecting international arrivals.
Kiosks are back up and running at YVR. Truly appreciative of everybody’s patience today as we processed arriving passengers, and thankful to the employees who worked hard to help throughout the issue. Sincere apologies to those who were inconvenienced. https://t.co/hLvT1HgyJT
— Vancouver Airport (@yvrairport) July 28, 2019
Chaos at YVR as all arrival machines are down. Hundreds upon hundreds of people in line upstairs, bags lined up in rows. pic.twitter.com/H08cVbRCeS
— Morten @ WPCampus in Portland (@mor10) July 28, 2019
4.5 hours and counting. Two old age pensioners have bit the dust and have been carried out on stretchers! We’ve been waiting for our luggage for 2 hours now and poor tabby the cat is on lap 587 of the luggage carousel! Poor kitty!
— Dan Evans (@messywelshman) July 28, 2019
