Sydney International Airport hit by Border Force outage

A Border Force security outage which reportedly affected passport control has caused lengthy delays at Sydney International Airport for the second time in just three months.

The Australian Border Force has apologised for an “outage” which has caused major delays at Sydney Airport.

It’s understood the issue was affecting electronic passport control machines at the international terminal this morning and staff were forced to manually process all passengers.

Sydney Airport informed frustrated travellers via social media that the delays were due to a “Border Force issue”.

Just before 11:30, the ABF said all issues were “rectified” and staff were working to minimise delays caused by the outage.

“We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused travellers,” a spokesperson said.

Long queues at Sydney International Airport. Picture: Twitter/@dougabdiel

International arrivals were backed up at Sydney Airport for several hours on April 29 due to a technical issue with the Smart Gate electronic passport machines.

Social media was flooded with angry posts at the time as passengers battled to make it through passport control.

“Sydney Airport you should be ashamed. 7am, all the international flights are landing, the epassport gates aren’t working and 2000 people are jammed into your poxy arrivals hall,” one person wrote.

Sydney Airport said the delays were due to a “Border Force issue”.

The elements have plagued the airport in the past week with wild wind leading to the cancellation of hundreds of flights in and out of Sydney on Saturday.

Frustrated Jetstar, Qantas, Tigerair, Virgin and Rex passengers reported being stranded for at least three hours as gale force winds of up to 70km/hour battered the domestic airport.

On Wednesday, a fire caused the evacuation of the international terminal’s duty-free area.

Smoke filled the departures screening area after a battery burst into flames.