‘No major operational impacts’ despite widespread outage, says YVR

Travelers at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, July 11, 2024. (SeongJoon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A widespread system outage affecting some Canadian airports hasn’t affected operation at Vancouver International Airport, according to officials.

Hundreds of passengers were stuck on airplanes or facing long wait times at multiple Canadian airports on Sunday after numerous Canadian Border Services Agency inspection kiosks experienced outages.

The devices are used to confirm travellers’ identity and submit their customs declaration.

“We are aware of the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) systems outage impacting the Primary Inspection Kiosks at airports across Canada, including YVR,” a Vancouver airport spokesperson said Sunday afternoon.

“These self-service machines are used by all travellers arriving to Canada from an international destination during the customs and immigration process. As CBSA works to resolve the issue, CBSA personnel are manually processing all international travellers.”

While passengers at YVR may experience “slightly longer than normal” custom clearance times, there are “no major operational impacts” to the airport, the spokesperson said.

“Flights are operating on schedule.”